


A Lightyear Between Me and You

by rweoutofthewoods



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura's Death, Amnesia, Brain Damage, Farmer Lance (Voltron), Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Klance endgame, Lance gets the appreciation he deserves, Lost Memories, M/M, Post Season 8, Title from a Country Song, Voltron, War, a lot isn't tagged to avoid spoilers, a lot of lying, allurance, another fic titled from a song, dealing with grief, intelligent design, klance, sacrifices are made, space n stuff, title from Space by Marren Morris, very big Shiro/keith brotherly relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2020-01-07 01:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 27
Words: 54,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rweoutofthewoods/pseuds/rweoutofthewoods
Summary: Lance always wanted to go to space.He used to dream about it, read about it, and talk about it. So he thinks it's incredibly cruel that he went but can't remember.Lance has accepted that he'll never remember what happened, or why and how he left earth years prior. That is until some stroke of fate brings him to someone he used to know.He doesn't know if his memories are gone for good but as he sets off on a whirlwind quest with a stranger who might not be a stranger after all Lance is determined to find out.But he just might get more than he bargained for.But maybe some secrets are best left alone.





	1. Déjà Vu

Lance always wanted to go to space. He used to dream about it, read about it, and talk about it. He remembered being six years old and picking out blue glow-in-the-dark stars and plastic planets to stick on his bedroom ceiling. He remembered jumping up and down excitedly as his father stuck them up there. Once they were up Lance’s father turned off the lights and pulled the curtains shut. Lance watched the little glowing stars thinking they were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Look,” His papa whispered placing a hand on Lance’s shoulder “now you have your very own solar system.”

Lance loved those plastic stars. He fell asleep underneath them for years and years, growing up until he was tall enough to touch the stars that once seemed so far away. It gave him hope that one day he could touch the stars for real.

And maybe he did, who knew?  
He remembered a lot of things about when he was young when his dream was nothing but a hope. The problem was after that, Lance didn’t remember much.

He remembered getting his acceptance letter from the Garrison. He remembered going out to dinner with his whole family and that his parents cried. He remembered packing buzzing with nervous excitement. He remembered turning off his bedroom light and glancing at his blue stars one last time before shutting the door for the last time for many years. But after that moment, nothing.

Just blackness.

And logically Lance knows it’s been years since he left for the garrison but it feels like it was only weeks ago because that’s how Lance remembered it. One moment he was shutting his bedroom door the next he was waking up in a hospital surrounded by his family who was somehow older.

Apparently, he’d been to space. Some serious Garrison men had visited Lance in the hospital and told him so. Lance had been sneaking out with some friends and he got caught up in some conspiracy involving Takashi Shirogane, Lance had seen this Shirogane guy on TV before but that was all he knew of him.  
The Garrison men told Lance that he’d disappeared into space with some of his classmates and then appeared alone a few weeks later crash landing in the desert in an escape pod from some foreign ship. He’d been in a coma for years after that, sleeping while the world burned.

And that was all they knew.

Lance wasn’t sure if he believed them, something about it seemed off and so at first Lance searched for answers.

He researched Takashi Shirogane, apparently, he was the captain of The Atlas and the former leader of Voltron. His place as black paladin had been taken up by some guy named Keith Kogane who had led Voltron to victory over some aliens called the Galra.  
Though, it seemed it had cost them because Voltron was now officially disbanded after losing two of it’s paladins in the final battle.

There was no information on the other paladins, the two dead one nor the green and yellow paladins who were still alive. Lance looked but all the message boards and Voltron groups online said that the other paladins kept a low profile and anyone who knew their names were sworn to secrecy, and apparently information on the dead red and blue paladins was classified, kept under lock and key by the government.

So after a bunch of dead ends, Lance gave up. Maybe he had something to do with Takashi Shirogane, maybe he had some kind of connection to Voltron, maybe not. Eventually, Lance realized that it didn’t matter.

Maybe he’d been to space, maybe he achieved his dream. But he was here now.  
Lance had his family and his farm and he was happy.

He was happy despite the way his stomach dropped every time he saw Takashi Shirogane or Keith Kogane on TV. Despite how Veronica choked on her drink the one time Lance commented on Keith’s awful mullet. Despite the yearning, he felt each time he looked up at the stars at night. Some reaching ache like he was missing something.

And it was cruel, it was so cruel that Lance had been to space and he couldn’t remember, it was cruel that Lance didn’t even know what or who he was missing.

So Lance stopped looking at the stars, and he stopped watching the news the day it was announced that Keith Kogane was leaving earth to run relief missions with the Blade of Marmora, Lance cried, he didn’t know why.

 

Two years passed and Lance was happy, he told himself he was content to live his life like this. Until one fateful day, Lance was on the road for an agriculture conference in Texas when he decided to stop by and pay Veronica a visit.  
He knew Veronica lived in Texas, he didn’t know why. Lance didn’t think Texas was a particularly pleasant place but Veronica had some top secret job for the government and Texas was where they wanted her.

So Lance pulled his old blue truck into her driveway late on a Sunday afternoon, the sun was beginning to set and everything was painted shades of orange, gold, and red. It reminded Lance of something but he didn’t try to remember what, he knew he’d only come up empty-handed.

There were two other cars besides Veronica’s parked in her driveway but Lance shrugged it off and climbed the steps up to her porch. If she had serious company he could come back later but it was probably just her best friends Charlotte and Lana.

Lance run the doorbell and waited as it rang through the house. There were footsteps and the door was swung open. Veronica stood there for a moment gaping at him before the let out a shriek and swept him into a hug.

“Oh my god!” she beamed pulling away after she’s sufficiently bruised his ribs in her hug “What are you doing here?”

“I had an agriculture thing nearby I figured I surprise you with a quick visit.”

“Aww. Thanks for stopping by. Come in!”

She ushered Lance inside shutting the door behind him.

“Do you want something to eat?” She asked leading him towards the living room.

“Aw nah, thanks Ronnie but I’m good. I saw you had company I don’t wanna impose.”

She stopped suddenly as they entered the living room and Lance rammed into her. “Oh my god, I have company.”

And indeed she did have company. Sitting on her couch was none other than Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane along with some other guy Lance didn’t recognize.

The room was filled with a moment of weird silence while Veronica’s guests stared openmouthed then Veronica said in a forced cheerful voice “Um guys this is my brother Lance!”

There was an awkward beat before Takashi Shirogane was pushing himself off the couch and holding out his hand “Hi Lance, I’m Shiro.” He said kindly.

“Um yeah, I know.” Lance blurted out.

Shiro’s eyebrows shot up “You do?” he asked sounding a little choked.

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen you on the news.”

“Oh right.” Shiro cleared his throat “Well it’s nice to meet you, Lance, Veronica speaks highly of you.”

“Oh um thanks?”

Shiro smiled “This is my fiancé Curtis,” he said gesturing the guy Lance didn’t recognize. “And my little brother Keith.”

Curtis stood to shake Lance’s hand with a smile and Keith followed echoing his movements but with a smile that looked considerably more pained.

“It’s nice to meet you Lance,” Keith said.

Lance should have responded in kind but instead, he panicked overcome but some emotion he couldn’t place and so he blurted out “Your hair looks even worse in real life.”

“Oh my god, Lance,” Veronica hissed.

“What?” Lance asked his sister who was glaring at him “he has a mullet! Honestly, he’s asking for it. Who the fuck has a mullet nowadays?”

For a moment Keith looked like he was about to cry, his eyes were glassy and Lance wondered if he’d honestly offended the guy. But then Keith let out a small laugh.

“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” Keith said his smile soft.

“No? Well then maybe you should think about getting a haircut.”

Keith shrugged “Maybe I will.”

“Wait seriously?” Lance asked.

“Sure.”

“Okay, I take it back! Don’t cut it, I was kidding, I like it.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up “Really?”

“Yeah,” Lance shrugged “It kind of suits you.”

“Hm,” Keith cocked his head peering at Lance like he was some kind of mystery “Thanks.”

“So,” Veronica said as the room settled back down again “I’m honestly a little surprised you stopped by Lance, I hadn’t heard from you in forever and mama said you weren’t returning her calls.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been busy.”

“With the farm?”

“Um yeah, something like that.”

Veronica’s eyes narrowed “What does that mean?”

Lance shrugged.

“Did you meet someone?”

Lance sighed “For the millionth time Ronnie I’m not interested in meeting someone. Why do you always bring this up?”

“Why not?” She asked accusingly.

“I dunno, not the romantic type.”

She snorted “You used to be, c’mon Lance you were the biggest flirt.”

“I used to be? Ronnie, I was fourteen when I left home I definitely wasn’t flirting with anyone. I was so awkward.”

“Ugh no not then after.”

“After?” Lance raised his eyebrows “I disappeared and then I was in a coma. I’m not sure if I was flirting but if I was you definitely weren’t there to see it.”

Veronica winced realizing she’d made a mistake “No you’re right, of course. Sorry, I must be mixing you up with Marco.”

Lance made a face “Wow, I’m insulted. Marco’s on like his eighth girlfriend this year and it’s only April! How could you mix him up with me?”

“We have a lot of siblings okay! Don’t tell me you don’t get people mixed up sometimes. Like who was it that filled the toilet with pickles when I was in 6th grade? Was it Luis or Marco or Rachel? Who knows?”

At that Lance let out a loud snort. “Actually it was me.”

“What!” Veronica jumped up nearly knocking a glass of water over.

“I thought it’d be funny.”

“Oh my god, Lance.” She shook her head “Mama and Papa grounded us for a month because they couldn’t figure out who did it, the only one who they were sure was innocent was you!”

Lance smiled wickedly.

“So why exactly did you fill the toilet with pickles?” Shiro asked looking perplexed.

“I was eleven, honestly who knows? I knew my parents wouldn’t suspect me at the time and I thought it’d be fun to pit my siblings against each other. I told my parents that I thought Marco had done it and I told Marco I’d seen Veronica do it, told Veronica I’d seen Luis with the pickles that day, and so on. The all blamed each other and nobody ever suspected it was me.”

“Wow,” Curtis laughed “You were like a little criminal mastermind.”

“Oh I don’t know about that, most of my pranks were not nearly as well thought out and my siblings always busted them before I got very far. That’s why my parents didn’t suspect me, they didn’t think I had enough skill to pull it off and hide it from them. I was always more for winging it back then.” Lance shuddered “Can’t imagine that now, spontaneous things never go well. Plans are best.”

“But you deciding to come visit me was spontaneous.” Veronica pointed out.

“Nah, I figured I’d come see you as soon as I found out the conference was nearby.”

Veronica sighed “Well I think you should be spontaneous more often you could benefit from it. Fewer plans, I dunno take a risk.”

The next words Lance spoke left his mouth before he could even process what they were, the felt almost like an instinct, like something deep inside him made him say them.

“Taking a risk is what got me into this situation in the first place.”

It was like the air was suddenly pulled out of the room and everyone stilled.

“Um,” Keith started tentatively “what situation?”

“Here.” Lance’s brow furrowed “Wait no- that’s not uh. There? Space. Before it was all black…” Lance trailed off shaking his head. “Sorry I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

There was some tendril of memory on the outskirts of his mind and suddenly the sense of Déjà vu that Lance had become accustomed to was replaced by something much clearer, heat on his skin a familiar weight in his hand a gasp, a scream, fire, someone yelling his name.

Wait someone was calling his name, not in the rough frantic way in his memory though but softer different.

 

Lance snapped out of his head with a start. Veronica was kneeling in front of him her face lined with worry.

“Lance, are you alright?”

“Oh uh yeah, I’m fine.”

“That’s never happened before, what was that?”

“I dunno, a memory I think.”

“A memory?”

“Yeah I don’t know, it was hot and I was holding something and somebody was yelling my name. There was like a fire or something. I was burning I think.”

“You were—“ Veronica faltered and took a deep breath “Have you remembered things before?”

Lance shook his head. “No, I get like Déjà vu sometimes, I can’t normally link it to something specific but there a few times like when the sunset is really golden some days it reminds me of something and I can almost imagine sitting next to someone watching it. But it’s not a real memory just a feeling. I’ve never got anything solid before.”

Lance didn’t see the upset expression that crossed over Keith’s face at the mention of a moment Keith remembered but Lance had forgotten.

“Do you think you’re remembering?” Veronica asked.

“I don’t know,” Lance said quietly.

“Do you want to? Do you want to get your memories back?”

Lance paused for a moment to think before answering “I- I’d like to know who I am.”

“You know who you are, you’re Lance,” Veronica said her eyes sad.

“Am I? I dunno I’m kind of tired of waking up every day with an ache in my chest for people I can’t remember. I’ve never told you this Ronnie but I’m in love with someone, I don’t even know their name! Hell, I don’t even know if they’re alive, if the love me too. I just know that they’re out there somewhere waiting for me.”

“I’m sorry Lance,” Veronica said softly not meeting his eyes.

“It’s fine, there’s nothing you can do.” Lance stood up “I actually should get going I still need to check into my hotel. But I’ll stop in and visit you again later if that’s okay?”

“Uh,” Veronica knew she wasn’t going to get anything more out of Lance so she sighed and continued “That sounds great, how long are you going to be in town?”

“I was planning on heading out next week. But I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay, I’ll see you out.”

“No, no,” Lance brushed her off “its fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Lance rolled his eyes “I can get to the front door without your help I swear.”

“Okay,” Veronica huffed “Fine, I’ll see you yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She kissed him on the cheek “Okay, I love you.”

“Love you too.” Lance turned to Shiro, Curtis, and Keith “It was nice to meet you guys.”

They exchanged some quick waves and then Lance was out the door making his way down the driveway.

It was dark now the orange sky had faded to a soft purple dusk and bugs were happily making their nighttime noises hidden from sight.  
Lance was unlocking his truck when he heard footsteps pounding down the driveway behind him. He turned to see Keith standing behind him eyes wide and dangerous. Lance was suddenly struck by the notion that he could get lost in those eyes, get swept up by the raging wind and fire inside of them and just die in them, he was surprised to realize he’d be completely okay with that.

Keith spoke first “What if you could get them back?”

“What?”

“Your memories, what if I knew a way you might be able to get them back?”

“You know a way?”

“I have some ideas.”

Lance reached inside his truck and pulled out a napkin and a pen he quickly wrote something down and then handed it to Keith. “If you _could_ help me remember then I’d say that this is the hotel where I’ll be staying and you should come see me tomorrow at ten.”

Before Keith could say anything Lance was climbing into his truck and pulling out of the driveway leaving Keith standing there clutching the napkin with Lance’s messy scrawl like it was a lifeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited for this story I literally came up with the idea last night and I kind of just ran with it. I'll probably have the next chapter within this week but until then you can check out some of my other fics.
> 
> Anyways thanks for reading and I hope you'll enjoy this ride! 
> 
> XO


	2. Pros And Cons

 

Keith woke to his alarm going off at 5:30 as usual. It was still dark as he slid out of bed and clicked on his lamp the light casting shadows across his bedroom. Keith yawned then padded over to his dresser swiftly pulling on a black tank top and running shorts.

It wasn’t until he’d eaten a quick breakfast and was starting his run that he suddenly remembered last night.

 

_Lance._

Logically Keith knew that he might see Lance again one day. After all, Veronica worked at the Garrison alongside Shiro and the Holts, not to mention the BoM often allied with the Garrison in their war relief efforts. So really it shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it was to see Veronica lead Lance into her living room.

But seeing Lance again after all these years was like being plunged into an ice bath. For a second Keith felt like he was drowning.

 

But as much of a shock as seeing Lance was being around him again didn’t feel as monumental as it should have. In fact, it felt like being with Lance any other time Keith had been, Lance had even insulted Keith’s hair for god’s sake!

If it weren’t for Lance’s broader shoulders and tanner skin Keith wouldn’t have been sure any time had passed at all since Lance was piloting Red by Keith’s side.

 

Except it had.

Because last time Keith had seen Lance he’d been half dead and sick with grief and trauma. An image flashed through Keith’s head of Lance bruised and bloodied his eyes distant as Keith held Lance’s broken body against his chest. His lips trembled slightly as his eyes met Keith’s the focus coming back a bit.

 

_“Don’t leave me.”_

Lance had whispered it his voice ragged.

 

_“Never.”_

 

Keith had said back tears choking him.

 

It was a lie that still haunted Keith on his coldest loneliest nights.

 

Because with Keith’s words Lance’s eyes had closed. They didn’t open again for six months but when they did Keith wasn’t there. He was lightyears away on another planet.

But it turned out to be for the best anyway since Lance didn’t even remember Keith anyway.

And he was never supposed to. They’d known that there was a pretty big chance that Lance could suffer memory loss. No one had expected it to be to the extent it was though. But it had worked out in Lance’s favor.

He was happy now, he didn’t remember any of the pain he went through.

 

Except, even as the thought crossed Keith’s mind another image rose up contradicting it. Lance’s eyes last night torn and lost as he admitted in that small voice that he didn’t know who he was.

 

Everyone would be furious if Keith were to tell Lance about his past. That was the one thing everyone had been told they were _not_ allowed to do. But… Keith wouldn’t be telling Lance, he’d just be helping him remember.

 

Lance wanted to remember.

 

How could Keith deny Lance that?

 

But should Keith really help him? Would it do more harm than good to get Lance’s memories back?

 

 

Keith was still debating it by the time he’d finished his run and was letting himself back into his apartment.

He was debating it in the shower and as he made himself a smoothie.

 

If Keith was Shiro he would have made a pros and cons list and carefully considered his options. But then again Shiro wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. There was no doubt that he was going to try and stay far away from Lance after last night’s encounter, he _definitely_ wouldn’t have chased after him and offered to help him and disobey the _one_ thing they’d been asked to do.

Yeah, Keith wasn’t Shiro.

 

So Keith went back and forth.

On one hand, he had told Lance he’d meet up with him today, but on the other hand if Keith stood Lance up it wouldn’t be hard to just avoid him the rest of Keith’s life. 

 

The thought sent an unpleasant feeling down his spine. He didn’t want to avoid Lance, Keith wanted to be a part of Lance’s life. It was something Keith had yearned for in the years since he’d lost Lance. But Keith had thought it impossible so he tried to let it go, _now_ however after seeing Lance last night it had returned with a renewed vigor.

 

Keith had missed Lance, and as much as Keith had pushed it to the back of his mind, focusing on his work with the Garrison and Blade of Marmora, it was undeniable.

And it was that what pushed Keith out of his apartment at a quarter to ten to meet up with Lance.

 

Even as he followed the directions to the address Lance had given him Keith was having second thoughts. There was a coiling knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach which led to Keith sitting in his car for twenty minutes in the parking lot of Lance’s hotel still debating whether or not to do this.

 

By 10:25 Keith was most definitely late as he dragged himself into the hotel and to Lance’s room checking the number Lance had written down before knocking cautiously.

 

The door swung open and Lance looked surprised to see Keith like he hadn’t invited him just the previous night.

 

“Uh, where you not expecting me?” Keith asked cocking his head to survey Lance’s raised eyebrows and mouth shaped in a surprised ‘o’.

 

“Um yes? I mean I was like thirty minutes ago but even then I wasn’t sure you’d show up and then you didn’t so… I assumed you weren’t coming.”

 

“Oh sorry,” Keith scratched the back of his neck awkwardly “Some uh… stuff came up.” Keith decided not to disclose the particular information that he’d been freaking out in the car for twenty minutes like a teenager on their first date.

 

Lance shook his head “No, no it’s fine, why don’t you come in, sit down?”

 

“Um okay, sure.” Lance stepped back to allow Keith entrance into his room.

 

It was, uh small, if you were being kind. There was a tiny desk with an uncomfortable looking chair, and a TV perched on a set of drawers and then a single bed.  There wasn’t really any good place to sit.

 

Lance seemed to realize this at the same time as Keith because he said: “Um, you can sit on the bed I guess.”

 

“No it’s fine, I’ll sit on the chair.”

 

“Are you sure? That things basically like a torture device.”

 

Keith shrugged sitting down “it's fine, I’ve been tortured before.”

 

Lance made a strangled noise and Keith realized he probably shouldn’t have said that.

 

“Oh sorry, that was kind of a tactless thing to say wasn’t it? My social skills have always been a little lacking.”

 

Lance shook his head “But aren’t you kind of like a diplomat?” he asked perching on the bed.

 

Keith snorted “Nah, I do the dirty work and then just kind of stand there while other people do the diplomatic shit. Axca actually banned me from talking during most diplomatic situations. She says my job is to shake hands and then stand there and look pretty.” Keith rolled his eyes “Zethrid says that I look more threatening than pretty. It’s safe to say I sit out on most of that stuff.”

 

“But I’ve seen you on TV, giving speeches and stuff. They’re always good.”

 

Keith shrugged “Thanks, but talking to big groups of people about something I’m passionate about is easy, making one-on-one conversation when I don’t already know what I’m going to be saying is a lot harder. I tend to uh, anger people.”

 

Lance hummed “Yeah I could see that.”

 

Keith had to stop himself from laughing. Lance had no idea that he used to be one of those people Keith angered so much.

 

 

“Anyways, the reason I’m here?”

 

“Right,” Lance seemed to come into himself a shadow passing over his face “my memory.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You can help me get it back?”

 

“I-“ Keith took a deep breath, “I can’t make any promises, but I’m going to try my very best.”

 

“How?”

 

“Well, I think your memories can be triggered. You were talking about déjà vu last night and how certain things triggered it. So if we found things that could connect you to your past then I think you might start to remember.”

 

“But Keith,” Lance said running his fingers through his hair “the thing is _I don’t remember_. How are we supposed to find things that are from my past or connected to it if I can’t remember my past?”

 

“Well, maybe you don’t remember but there are some people who would remember parts of it.”

 

“What do you mean? Who?”

 

“I…” Keith hesitated biting his lip.

 

“Keith!” Lance said jumping up to stand in front of him.

 

Keith sighed looking up at Lance, he made the decision before he could change his mind.

 

“I went to the Garrison with you, we were cadets together.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: the chapters for this story are probably going to be a bit shorter than in my other fics, really I think this fic is going to be shorter overall. My other stories I'm aiming for like twenty(ish) chapters, I think this one will probably be closer to ten but nothing is set in stone yet.
> 
> Anyway thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments are always appreciated. I love to talk <3


	3. Moths And Their Flames

 

 

There was a beat of silence and then Lance spoke. “That makes sense.”

 

“Does it?” Keith seemed surprised by Lance’s lack of surprise.

 

“Yeah. I knew the first time I saw you on TV that I knew you. I mean I couldn’t be sure but you were so familiar, so yeah, it makes sense.”

 

Keith nodded and Lance could tell there was something important going on in his head. Lance didn’t ask though, instead, he said: “Were we friends then?”

 

“Um…” Keith bit his lip seemingly unsure of how to answer “Well it was kind of _complicated_.” Keith said the word like it meant something more than its definition, a mirthless smile gracing his lips for half a second before it vanished.

 

“I take it you’re not going to elaborate?”

 

Keith shook his head “I can’t tell you things about yourself, I’ll probably get things wrong and I don’t want to give you false images. We’ll just have to get you to remember.”

 

“Okay, okay, fine.” Lance huffed “But are we friends now?”

 

“I-“ Keith looked taken aback for a moment by the change in boomerang in the conversation “I mean, yeah? If you want to be.”

 

“Of course I want to be. If you’re going to be helping me get my memories back we can’t not be friends!”

 

The corners of Keith’s lips curled up just the slightest bit “No, of course not.”

 

“Good. Well, then my first official business as your friend is to say that we need to go get breakfast. Or brunch I guess? It’s kind of late now.”

 

“Wait now? Don’t you want to work on getting your memories back?”

 

Lance snorted, typical Keith, right down to business “C’mon I’ve waited this long a little longer won’t kill me.”

 

“Um okay, sure?”

 

“Okay!” Lance flashed Keith a smile “So, know anywhere good to eat around here?”

 

 

\----

 

Keith had taken Lance to a small dinner in basically the middle of the desert. Despite how old and a little shabby it was, the food was good. Lance voiced this to Keith scarfing down his grill cheese sandwich while Keith carefully picked at his own food.

 

“Hm yeah, this place is the best. I used to come here with Shiro when I was younger. We haven’t been since the war ended though.”

 

“How come?”

 

Keith shrugged “Dunno, guess it’s partly my fault, I’ve been away from Earth for the most part since the war ended. And I don’t think Shiro comes here often without me.”

 

“Why did you decide to leave?” Lance asked suddenly.

 

Keith considered Lance’s question for a moment before speaking. “It was where I needed to be I guess. I mean before Voltron I didn’t have anyone really besides Shiro and then I went to space and I found myself a place, as the leader of Voltron, as a son, a friend. When the time the war ended I could have stayed on Earth with Shiro but I didn’t want to. I was needed other places.”

 

“And you didn’t miss it? Man, I imagine if I was in space for that long I’d get so homesick.”

 

A pained expression crossed Keith’s face but it fell away before Lance could figure out what it meant. “I mean a bit I guess. I missed Shiro. And I guess once I’d entertained the idea of staying on Earth when the war was over but I, uh lost my reason for staying.” He shrugged.

 

“Your reason for staying?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith cleared his throat, “I had someone who was here. But they’re _gone_ now.”  Keith fiddled with his napkin not meeting Lance’s eyes.

 

“ _Oh_ ,” Lance said softly “I’m sorry.”

 

“Thanks but it’s fine. It was a long time ago.”

Lance decided not to point out that it didn’t seem like it was fine. Instead, he asked: “Okay, but you’re back now, How come?”

 

“What’s up with the interrogation?” Keith asked pursing his lips.

 

Lance shrugged “It’s not meant to be an interrogation, I’m just curious.”

 

Keith huffed under his breath “You always were.”

 

Deicing to ignore that Lance asked again “So? What brought you back to boring ol’ Earth after all this time?”

 

“The Garrison needed my help with a project, Shiro wanted me to be an instructor for flight classes plus he’s getting married soon. Space was where I needed to be then, I needed to be here now. My instincts are usually right and so when they were telling me to come back I listened. Guess they were right because it led me to you.”

 

“You’re a flight instructor?”

 

“Wow, Of course, that was the only thing you got out of that. Yes, Lance, I am.”

 

“So you teach kids then?”

 

“The cadets yes.”

 

“Aww, Keith that’s so cute! Who knew you were a softie at heart?”

 

Keith scowled “Shut up.”

 

“Aw, is wittle Mwullet emwbarrassed?”

 

“I swear to god Lance, if you keep this up I’m leaving and you can go get your memories back on your own.”

 

“Okay okay, fine!” Lance said putting his hands up in surrender.

 

Keith rolled his eyes then turned to look around the dinner “Where our waitress?” he asked, “I didn’t get the check yet.”

 

Like magic as he spoke the words a waitress appeared. “Keith!” She said smiling brightly.

 

“Hey, Sally,” Keith responded, he barely smiled but his eyes were lit in that soft purple way where you could just tell he was happy.

 

“I didn’t realize you were here! I would have asked Alisha to swap tables with me if I’d known.”

 

Keith chuckled “It’s cool, I didn’t know you were still working here.”

 

“Indeed I am. Now how have you been? Last time I saw you was just what, six months after the war ended?” She smiled fondly “Only the second day we were open, had just got the place back into working order after the Galra’s reign on Earth, you were in here ordering the same thing you would order at thirteen. It was like a blast from the past, right down to the fiery anger you always carried with you. You don’t seem so distraught anymore though, you’ve been better?”

 

“Uh, yeah, yeah.”

 

She smiled kindly “That’s good to hear, and who’s your friend?”

 

“Oh Sally, this is Lance.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Lance.” She reached out her hand and he was reminded for a moment of his own mama as she shook his hand so kindly and sweetly. “How do you know Keith?”

 

“We went to the Garrison together.”

 

As the words left his lips Lance knew they were true, the felt more real than anything else he knew. He _had_ gone to the Garrison with Keith.

Lance could see clearly Keith, younger and scrawnier with a bloody lip and a fire in his eyes that both scared Lance and drew him in like a moth to a flame. And Lance remembered.

 

Jealousy, spite, frustration. Keith was everything Lance wanted to be, Shiro’s favorite, naturally talented, “a prodigy” classmates and instructors alike would whisper in awe. People threw themselves at him, everyone just wanted a taste of Keith Kogane. But not Lance, no he hated Keith, _Lance_ was the only one who saw through Keith.

That’s what Lance told himself at least, but losing the memories and getting them back again but things in perspective a little. Lance didn’t want to _be_ Keith he _wanted_ him. He wanted a boy who burned brighter than the sun but never even spared Lance a second glance. And that had hurt him so he’d pretended to hate Keith. And maybe it wasn’t all pretend because now Lance could feel the shadow of resentment from long ago bubbling under his skin he could understand why his past self had resented Keith. The guy was everything Lance wished he could be back in the days where he hated his own skin. He wanted to be somebody, but instead, he was just Lance, he was average. He didn’t have a _thing_ or a special talent.

 

And it was weird to feel these ghosts of feeling he didn’t feel anymore, but it was weirder to feel the ones he still felt.

 

An image flashed through his mind of Keith.

Keith standing in front of Lance inches apart nose to nose, lit from behind by a blazing fire. His lips bitten and bloody, his eyes sparkling with tears that were spilling out tracing paths down his cheeks. Breath coming out in gasps and hands shaking.

 

_“Lance.”_ He’d whispered jagged, hot, and broken like he couldn’t decide if it was a curse or a prayer.

 

And Lance needed to help him, to steady his shaking hands, dry his eyes and tame the fire that was threatening to engulf them both. But before Lance could reach for him he was gone, just like in every dream Lance had, slipping just out of reach.

 

Lance blinked and he was back in the present the past slipping away to a darker more comfortable part of his mind.

 

“Lance?” Keith was leaning forward across the table concern etched on his face.

 

In that moment Lance was struck by the differences between this Keith and the one he’d just seen in his head. This Keith was closed off, the fire in him contained, walls up. And he knew, he knew exactly what had been happening in that memory, hell Lance was pretty sure Keith had the answers to everything Lance wanted to know he just kept them to himself.

 

Lance pushed himself up and tore out of the dinner leaving a concerned Keith and bewildered waitress behind him. But when Lance got outside he was hit by a familiar smell of the desert air and it reminded him of _something_. The same way the golden sunsets did, turning the dull ache for someone inside of him into a white-hot painful yearning. He collapsed on the worn curb gasping for breath but getting only lungfuls of dust. He was choking and for a moment Lance thought he was going to suffocate when there was a warm hand on his shoulder.

Lance didn’t even realize he was crying until his tears were being wiped away as Keith softly cupped Lance’s face in his hand.

 

“Hey,” he whispered impossibly soft.

 

Lance wanted to push him away but at the same time he didn’t think he physically could, so acting purely on instinct Lance pulled Keith closer. His arms wrapped around Lance’s waist a little timid at first but quickly relaxing as Lance buried his head into Keith’s shoulder.

 

Like a moth drawn to a flame.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are happening real quick.
> 
>  
> 
> Fair warning in this fic everything means something.


	4. Bath Talk

 

 

After several minutes Lance pulled away not meeting Keith’s eyes.

 

“Give me your keys.”

 

“What?”  Lance asked furiously trying to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

 

“I’m not letting you sit on the curb any longer and you’re currently too upset to drive.”

 

Lance hesitated.

 

“C’mon Lance,” Keith said softly easing up on his straightforward manner for a moment “I don’t live far from here, I’ll take you to my place and you can sleep for a while or whatever you want.”

 

“I dunno.” Lance said still unconvinced.

 

“I don’t want to leave you alone at your hotel, please just let me take care of you for a little while.”

 

“Well, I guess that sounds okay…”

 

“Good,” Keith said pushing himself up, Lance followed close behind him.

 

Keith unlocked Lance’s truck and climbed in while Lance collapsed into the passenger seat. Lance didn’t speak during the ride and Keith didn’t push him to. Lance let his head rest on the window in silence brushing away the occasional stray tear that would make it’s way down his cheek.

 

They pulled into the parking lot of Keith’s apartment building and he cut the engine. Lance followed Keith to his door as he pulled the keys out of his pocket and let them inside.

 

“So this is your place?” Lance asked speaking for the first time since the diner parking lot, his voice was still a little rough and shaky but he sounded better.

 

“Yeah, I haven’t been living here long but it’s nice.”

 

“I like it.”

 

Keith smiled “thanks,”

 

Lance nodded and Keith watched as his eyes wandered to the pictures on Keith’s mantle.

 

“Is that your mom?” Lance asked pointing to a picture.

 

Keith was pretty sure Lance was just trying to take the attention off himself but Keith let him for the moment. “Yeah. She’s pretty awesome.”

 

“Yeah? She looks like you.”

 

“Hm, yeah, a bit.”

 

Lance examined the picture for a moment before turning back to Keith.

 

Keith frowned “So, is there anything can I do to make you feel better? Tea, a nap?”

 

“Um actually normally when I’m upset I… like to take baths?”

 

“You can do that if you want, I don’t have any fancy soaps or anything but,” he shrugged “I think there might be a bath bomb in the gift basket Romelle—“ Keith stopped realizing Lance wouldn’t know who Romelle was “Or uh, a friend of mine gave me when I moved in.”

 

“Oh okay.”

 

Keith retrieved the bath bomb for Lance and directed him to the bathroom. Keith collapsed on the couch with a sigh as he heard the water running.

 

 

He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t have questions, he knew Lance must have remembered something. Keith didn’t know what though and that made him nervous.

Keith groaned and put his head in his hands, this was going to drive him insane.

 

In the bathroom, the water shut off and Keith compelled by god knows what got up from the couch to stand in front of the bathroom door. He was about to knock when he thought better of it and let his hand fall to his side. He couldn’t ask Lance now, maybe he shouldn’t ask Lance what he remembered at all. Was that any of Keith’s business?

 

Keith sighed and moved to turn away when the floorboard beneath his feet let out a loud creak.

 

“Keith?” Lance called his voice muffled through the door.

 

“Uh yeah?”

 

“Did you want something?”

 

“Well actually… I wanted to talk to you?”

 

There was a moment of silence before Lance spoke. “You can come in?”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to talk to you through the door.”

 

“We can talk later.”

 

“Seriously Keith it's fine, the door’s unlocked.”

 

Keith hesitated for a moment before cautiously turning the doorknob and stepping inside the bathroom. It should have felt awkward as Keith plopped down on the floor next to the tub taking in Lance’s wet hair and flushed cheeks. It didn’t though. It felt natural. Keith wasn’t surprised though, his relationship with Lance had always been difficult and sometimes it felt so delicate and breakable but it was never awkward.

 

Keith was glad to see Lance looked at ease and much better than he had earlier.

 

“So,” Lance started “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

 

“You remembered something earlier.” It wasn’t a question and it came out harsher than Keith intended.

 

He expected Lance to clam up but he didn’t instead he seemed to deflate sinking farther into the water.

 

“I did. I’m assuming you want to know what?”

 

“I do, but if you don’t want to tell me that’s okay.”

 

“No, I should.”

 

“You should?”

 

“Yeah,” Lance ran a hand through his hair making it stick up in spikes. “I remembered you.”

 

An anxious feeling twisted in Keith’s stomach, there was a large number of things Lance could have remembered about him, a lot of them weren’t good. “What about me?”

 

“A lot of things, most of it didn’t make sense, just flashes, you younger as a cadet with a busted lip, and feelings. I- we weren’t friends at the Garrison were we? I remembered that I didn’t like you, I was angry, I think in the beginning I admired you but you never noticed me and it turned my feelings to jealousy and spite.”

 

Keith took a deep breath “Yeah, we weren’t friends. Not at first.”

 

“But how did we become friends? I didn’t get any of that, I just remembered the beginning and then there was something else…”

 

“You know I’m not going to tell you, you need to remember on your own which I’m now sure you can do. But, what else did you remember?”

 

“A moment, I don’t know it doesn’t make any sense to me, you said my name and you were crying and the world was on fire behind you, I think you were angry with me.”

 

Keith’s breath came out in a small gasp as he realized the memory Lance was referring to.  

 

“You know what I’m talking about?” Lance asked reading Keith.

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Do you think I’ll remember it one day?”

 

 _I hope not_ “Maybe.” Keith said shrugging.

 

Lance bit his lip “Keith.”

 

His voice was small and Keith met Lance’s eyes. “Yeah?”

 

“I’m scared.”

 

There was a moment of silence when the only sound was the drip of the faucet as a million thoughts ran through Keith’s head. He didn’t know how to articulate them so he reached his hand out to Lance. Lance hesitated for a moment before his wet fingers wrapped around Keith’s.

 

 

“Is everything going to be different when I’ve remembered?”

 

“I think of course things will be a little different, but your life can stay the same, it’ll be up to you.”

 

Lance smiled “You’re not that bad at this you know.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Comforting me. You said you weren’t good in social situations but you always know what to do and say to make me feel better.”

 

“Well, that’s because I know you.”

 

“And I know you.” Lance ran a finger of Keith’s hand which was still clutched in his “I feel like I shouldn’t, I mean I kind of met you yesterday but now I’m taking a bath in your house and you’re sitting right here and it feels normal, easy.”

 

“Yeah, it does.”

 

“I can’t wait to remember everything about you.”

 

As Lance smiled it banished the doubt from Keith’s mind. Maybe there was a lot that Keith would rather Lance never remember but at the same time if him remembering those awful moments was the price for him to remember the good ones, then it’d be worth it.

That was what everyone else couldn’t see, why they kept him in the dark. But Keith knew better, Lance was stronger than they gave him credit for.

 

Keith wouldn’t let his memories break him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this super quick so tell me if you catch any mistakes that I might have missed or if something doesn't make sense.


	5. Fights

 

Lance woke to the sounds of something shattering and somebody cursing. He lifted himself up from his spot on the couch to see Keith in the kitchen mumbling under his breath as he cleaned up what looked like a broken plate.

 

“You good?” Lance asked still heavy with sleep.

 

Keith jolted at Lance’s voice and promptly dropped the other plate he was holding.

 

“Shit!” He gasped.

 

Lance snorted “Oh my god, sorry.”

 

Keith shook his head “You shouldn’t bother apologizing if you’re just gonna laugh at me.” He grumbled.

 

Lance continued laughing but swung himself off the couch and made his way into the kitchen to help Keith clean up.

 

Once all the pieces were cleaned up twenty minutes later they both collapsed at the kitchen table exhausted.

 

There was a moment of silence before Keith said: “There’s no way I have enough energy to make breakfast now, wanna go out?”

 

“Wow,” Lance raised an eyebrow “A+ adulting, but yes, I do.”

 

“Cool let’s go.”

 

They stumbled out of Keith’s apartment and down to the parking lot, when they got to Lance’s truck he tossed Keith his keys, Keith caught them easily turning to Lance with a confused expression.

 

“I can’t take your passenger seat driving today, you might as well just drive.” Lance explained, “Plus I don’t know where we’re going.”

 

“Same place as yesterday? I mean unless you don’t wanna go back, but their breakfast is the best.”

 

“Sounds good.” Lance shrugged.

 

They hopped into the truck and Keith pulled out of the parking lot and they fell into a comfortable silence.

 

 

Lance was honestly surprised by how _at ease_ he felt after yesterday’s breakdown. Normally for Lance one little breakdown could lead to a week of him feeling stressed and out of it. But now he felt fine. After the initial shock of those memories, Lance found that it was actually kind of nice to look at Keith now and be able to picture him as a pre-teen, it gave Lance a background for the familiarity he felt with him.  

 

After the talk with Keith in the bathroom Lance had hung out with Keith for the rest of the day. They made cookies and watched Lance’s favorite cheesy movies and when the sun had set and Keith’s living room was filled with the soft light from the TV Lance had fallen asleep on the couch.

It was right in a way Lance hadn’t felt in a long time, not that he could remember at least. He felt almost guilty for thinking that this was something he could get used to.

 

Because in a few days Lance would go back home and no doubt eventually Keith would go back to space. That was something Lance understood in a way he wasn’t sure he should. Keith was the kind of person with a fire burning inside of him, he needed to be _out there_. Flying and saving people, never staying in one place too long. It was part of who he was and deep inside Lance knew Keith wasn’t going to stay on Earth long.

 

It was these thoughts that led to Lance asking Keith as they arrived at the diner and were seated: “When all this is over you’ll still be my friend right?”

 

“Yeah, of course,” Keith said looking startled.

 

“Are you sure? You’re not going to run off and never come back?”

 

“No, why would you think that?”

 

Lance bit his lip as a fact came to him, it wasn’t the first thing he’d remembered about Keith since yesterday, little things seemed to come back the longer he spent with Keith so Lance said with absolute certainty “You’ve left me before.”

 

Keith faltered a pained expression crossing his face, “Yeah,” he said quietly “I did. And I regretted it, I _regret_ it. I know you still don’t remember a lot but trust me when I say this, I just got you back Lance, I’m not letting you go ever again.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Uh, okay? That’s it?”

 

“Yeah, I trust you. And if someone told me I’d be having this conversation right now just three days ago I’d tell them they were crazy, but you’ve helped me so much, I’ve already got memories back! I didn’t think I’d ever remember anything. Really I owe you so much.”

 

Keith smiled softly and he opened his mouth to say something when the door opened, bell jingling happily. Keith gasped and slunk down in the booth.

 

“What?” Lance asked turning towards the door.

 

“Shiro, fuck,” Keith whispered.

 

“Why are you hiding from your brother?” Lance asked peering to catch a glimpse of Shiro who was accompanied by Curtis. They were chatting amiably with the hostess as she led them farther into the restaurant.  

 

“Um well— oh shit” Keith cursed and dove under the table as they walked past the booth where Keith and Lance sat.

 

Lance peered under the table trying to hold back his laughter.

 

“What the fuck Keith?”

 

It was at that exact moment that Shiro appeared at their table “Lance?” he asked looking completely perplexed.

 

“Oh hi!” Lance said sitting upright so fast he nearly knocked over his glass of water.

 

“Is everything alright?”

 

“Um…” under the table Keith pinched Lance’s leg, Lance had to stop himself from yelping but he got the message “Yeah, I just dropped my fork.”

 

“Really? Oh, I’ll get it for you.”

 

“No!” Shiro’s eyebrows went up and Lance quickly tried to fix the situation “Uh- I mean I can get it… myself.”

 

Shiro now wore a look on his face very similar to the one’s Lance’s mama wore when she’d caught him in a lie. He bent down looking underneath the table.

 

“I don’t see your fork, I do see Keith though. Hi Keith.”

 

Under the table Keith sighed and slid back up into his seat. His hair was disheveled and Lance couldn’t help but snort. Keith shot him a glare.

 

“If you don’t mind Lance I’m going to borrow Keith for a moment.”

 

Shiro didn’t wait for an answer before dragging Keith from the booth and towards the door, Lance watched as they stepped outside Keith crossing his arms angrily.

 

 

\-----

 

 

“So, Keith, care to tell me what the _hell_ you’re doing with Lance?”

 

“I- we bumped into each other.”

 

“Really?” Shiro said in a voice that made it clear he didn’t believe Keith one bit.

 

“Okay so maybe I sought him out! Why does it matter to you?”

 

“It matter because it was made _very_ clear that we were to stay out of Lance’s life. If we want him to be happy we have to let him live his life without us.”

 

“But you heard him the other night Shiro! He’s not happy!”

 

“But he will be, once enough time has passed he’ll stop reaching for things he can’t remember, he’ll move on and then he’ll be happy.”

 

“But what if I’m not happy!”

 

Shiro’s stern demeanor faltered for a moment “Keith—“

 

“Takashi!” Keith cut him off “You have to understand how hard this has been. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about him, that you haven’t missed him! You know Hunk didn’t leave Earth to open a space restaurant because he wanted to be in space rather than here! He never wanted to be in space in the first place, Hunk left because he felt guilty and sick just like I know everyone else does! It was wrong of us to leave Lance.”

 

Shiro sighed “Maybe it was, but it’s not like Lance knows that, does it matter if we wronged him when it doesn’t affect him? He’s not hurt by it. He doesn’t remember Keith.”

 

“You know that’s bullshit, Shiro! Of course, it matters. Just because he can’t remember doesn’t mean it’s okay. It’s not. And if you believe it is then you just lost a whole lot of my respect.”

 

A hurt expression crossed Shiro’s face “You’re right.” He admitted.

 

“I know,” Keith said glaring.

 

Shiro surveyed him for a moment, Keith didn’t know what he was seeing but whatever it was made Shiro soften “I’m sorry Keith, I know losing Lance hurt you. And if you choose to have a relationship with him then I can’t exactly stop you, but I’ll warn you against it. Your relationship will be built on a lie Keith and Lance will never be able to give you what you want from him.”

 

Shiro’s last remark wasn’t sharp but it hurt more than anything else he’d said. The implication of what he was saying was clear, he thought Keith was _using_ Lance. That he was taking this as a second chance to get from Lance what he’d never been able to get from him before. The idea was disgusting and Keith almost wanted to tell Shiro that he was doing the exact opposite, Keith was helping Lance get his memories back, regardless of the consequences. Keith was doing it _for_ Lance. But he couldn’t say any of that, if anyone knew what he was doing he’d be in a lot of trouble, no one could know until Lance had all or most of his memories back, when it was too late for anyone to stop them. So Keith pushed all of that to the back of his mind and said:

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“Keith,” Shiro pleaded.

 

Keith turned away making it very clear that the conversation was over.

 

Shiro sighed knowing Keith well enough to realize that he wasn’t getting anything more out of Keith he went back inside leaving Keith on the sidewalk only feet away from where he’d held Lance only a day earlier.

 

A few moments after Shiro had left the door jangled again and someone stepped out beside him. Keith knew it was Lance without looking.

 

“Did Shiro say anything to you?” Keith asked

 

“No, why? Is everything alright?”

 

“Fine. I left my car at your hotel yesterday we should probably get it.”

 

“Okay,” Lance said not pressing Keith on it “I’ll drive this time.”

 

Keith nodded numbly letting Lance grab his hand and pull him towards the truck. Remembering Shiro’s words Keith had to resist the urge to pull his hand away.

 

 

Lance turned on the radio as they pulled down the dusty road and Keith couldn’t stop the smile that crossed his face as Lance started belting along with the Taylor Swift song that was playing.

 

So yeah, maybe Keith did revel in these moments with Lance but he wasn’t _using_ him. Shiro and anybody else who thought so could go to hell.

 

Keith was the one who was going to pay the price here, they’d see that sooner or later.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop! Hoped you liked this chapter. We're getting more memories soon and other members of team Voltron are gonna show up so prepare yourself for DRAMA. 
> 
> <3


	6. Projecting

Shiro had his head in his hands, elbows resting on the table.

 

“What did you say to Keith?” Curtis’s voice is soft but stern.

 

“Nothing that wasn’t true.

 

Curtis raised an eyebrow at his fiancé “Sometimes things that seem true in your eyes aren’t true in another’s.”

 

“Don’t be all wise with me, Curtis.”

 

Curtis chose to ignore that. “If what you were talking with Keith about had something to do with Lance… Even I know how sensitive he is about Lance and I barely even knew Keith when Lance was a paladin.”

 

Shiro didn’t say anything slumping even more over the table.

 

Most people wouldn’t guess it but fights with Keith always took a lot out of Shiro. But Shiro felt this talk was necessary, Keith was always too impulsive, too head-strong for his own good. It got him in trouble which Shiro had to dig him out of. He was just trying to spare Keith from the pain that was inevitably going to come from holding onto the past. He voiced the last part to Curtis who looked at Shiro clearly disappointed.

 

“Takashi,” He said softly, “I think you may be projecting.”

 

“Projecting?”

 

“Keith isn’t you and Lance… isn’t Adam.” Shiro’s brow furrowed and he stiffened slightly but Curtis continued “Lance isn’t dead, he’s not gone, just because letting go was what was right for you doesn’t mean that Keith should let go.”

 

“I-“ Shiro deflated under Curtis’s gaze “I know.”

 

 

After Shiro returned to Earth and the leftover chaos from the war had died down he’d finally been forced to face himself with Adam’s death. It was hard, almost harder than dying, harder than be captured and tortured by the Galra. Shiro had spent a long hard six months in a state of grief and distress until one day Keith came back from space and marched right into Shiro’s house. Keith took him out to visit Adam’s family, they spent a day together. And Shiro wasn’t going to lie it was painful but he _needed_ it. Later that night Shiro handpicked flowers and Keith brought him to Adam’s grave where Shiro placed them on the tombstone of the man he’d loved.

Keith had placed his hand on Shiro’s shoulder as he cried, he could still remember Keith’s voice, rough but caring as he spoke the words that Shiro still thought of years later.

 

“Sometimes the hardest part is letting go.”

 

And so Shiro did.

 

Not then at that moment, but eventually. He relaxed into his life, letting the grief melt from his shoulders taking up a place in the back of his mind. It still came out sometimes but when it did Shiro would pay Adam’s family a visit or handpick flowers for his grave just as he’d done the first time. And eventually, it eased.

 

So when sometime later Curtis asked Shiro out, he said yes.

 

Now he’d said yes again, only months prior when Curtis got down on one knee and asked Shiro to marry him.

 

And it was all thanks to Keith. Keith who’d eased Shiro’s pain and helped him have the life he did now, and yet for all these years he’d watched Keith with his walls up and his eyes closed off, he’d known the boy he’d come to know as his little brother was hurting, he knew why too.

 

_Lance._

Bright and goofy and loud, everything that Keith was not. Yet, somehow Keith had been drawn into his orbit.

 

Shiro had watched as Keith got hurt, as he regarded Lance with a light Lance never returned. Falling instead for Allura. Yet Keith had supported them, pushed Lance to be happy.

 

And after all these years _all_ Shiro could think was that if Keith could just let Lance _go_. Then he wouldn’t be hurting anymore.

 

 

But Keith was hopelessly ensnared in the former red paladin’s orbit.

 

 

 

 

\------

 

Keith was rummaging through his closet while Lance sat on his bed kicking his legs and humming Taylor Swift under his breath.

 

Lance didn’t know what Keith was looking for just that there was something he thought would help Lance with getting his memories back.

 

After yesterday’s breakdown, Keith was timid when bringing back up uncovering more but Lance was sure to ease his fears. Lance was ready, he’d been wanting this forever after all.

So with a nod, Keith mumbled something about a trigger and rushed off to his bedroom with Lance trailing behind.

 

“Why don’t you just unpack those boxes?” Lance asked as Keith heaved yet another full box out of his closest tearing it open.

 

“Well I never felt the need, most of this stuff are things I had in the Garrison and there are a few of things I had during my time in The Castle of Lions, I didn’t really need it and I never know when I’ll have to pack up and leave again.” He shrugged “so most of this stuff has been in storage in Shiro’s garage for the past few years. If I didn’t need any of it all that time there’s no use to unpack it just because I have a place of my own.”

 

“Except for now?”

 

Keith snorted “Yeah except, for now, makes me wish I had unpacked this all when I moved in.”

 

He pushed the box aside and opened another “Aha!” He exclaimed pulling something out.

 

“What’s that?” Lance asked scooting of Keith’s bed to squat next to him on the floor.

 

Keith unfolded the thing he was holding, it was a uniform. Lance recognized it as similar to the uniforms those who worked for the Garrison wore. It looked to be an older style though, the colors duller and the fabric worn.

 

“It was yours.”

 

“Mine?” Lance wanted to reach forward and take it but something stopped him “How’d you get it?”

 

“Well… um, I kind of stole it.”

 

“Of course you did.”

 

“Well, it’s not like anyone would notice. When you were in a coma all your things were given to your family they decided what to keep, there were a lot of things they were throwing out and I couldn’t let them. So I grabbed a bunch of your stuff before it got trashed.”

 

“What other stuff?”

 

“Um y’know… things.”

 

Lance bit his lip. Something about what Keith had said didn’t sit right, it didn’t match up with what Lance had been told. Keith hadn’t been on Earth when Lance had gone into a coma, he’d been in space and he hadn’t come back until years later when the Galra came to Earth, it didn’t make sense that his family would have been sorting through his things that late in the game, when Lance had been in a coma for years at that point.

 

Lance frowned and opened his mouth to point that out to Keith when a knock sounded through the apartment.

 

Keith leaped up “Um stay here, okay? That might be Shiro here about our fight earlier.” He grimaced “I’ll be right back.”

 

 

Lance nodded and Keith left the room closing the bedroom door behind him. Lance scooted over to where Keith had left Lance’s old uniform. He reached out for it slowly but when his fingers brushed the fabric no memories suddenly came rushing back. It felt familiar but nothing extraordinary. Lance sighed and let it drop to the floor, as he did his eye caught on the box Keith had pulled it out of.

 

Lance hesitantly opened the box. On top was a pile of photos the first one was of Keith and Lance, it was worn and cracked like it’s been looked at a lot.

They were standing side by side and Lance had his arm around Keith, Keith’s hair was longer and there was no scar on his face. Lance was wearing the old green jacket he used to love, he was smiling brightly at whoever was taking their picture while Keith’s eyes were on him, a barely there smile.

 

Lance felt himself smile, it was a cute picture even though Lance couldn’t remember it being taken. It was weird to look at it and know that was him but not have any idea where or when it had been.

 

Lance shuffled the pictures peering at the next one. It was once again Lance but this time he was sitting next to somebody else, a younger girl, maybe fourteen with short hair and glasses, she was wearing green and smiling wickedly at the camera as she reached up trying to give Lance bunny ears.

 

 _Pidge_ something in the back of his mind supplied.

 

Suddenly memories were coming back to him and an overwhelming rush that was starting to become familiar.

 

 

 

Pidge, she was smart and snarky, always spouting some tech shit Lance could never understand. He remembered fishing through a fountain at some weird mall to help her buy a video game she really wanted. He remembered playing that video game with her while she beat him brutally. He remembered her lending him her iPod so he could listen to music on nights he couldn’t sleep. He remembered her murderous looks whenever he called her Pidgeon and her hesitantly pulling him into a hug while Lance cried.

 

_“What am I supposed to do? You’re the smart one Pidge, what do I do?”_

_“I don’t know Lance.”_ She’d said it so softly and sadly, so different from her usual sharp tongue.

 

Lance gasped coming back to the present. He jumped up swinging the bedroom door open.

 

“Keith! Keith!” He yelled running down the hallway “I just remembered something!” Lance burst into Keith’s living room coming to a stop suddenly as he registered another person standing next to Keith.

 

It wasn’t Shiro like Keith had originally thought, instead, it was none other than Pidge, older than any of Lance’s memories supplied, she was gaping in shock at Lance.

She still had short hair and glasses and was still wearing green. Lance briefly wondered why she liked green so much before his train of thought was cut off my Keith’s glare.

 

“I told you to stay put.” Keith hissed.

 

“I forgot, sorry I have a bad habit of that.”

 

Keith snorted then quickly covered his mouth to hide his smile “Lance.” he scolded trying to be serious.

 

“Sorry Red.” The nickname slipped from Lance’s lips easily, he didn’t remember ever calling Keith that but by the way Pidge flinched it was clear it meant something _._

 

“Keith, what the ever loving fuck?” Pidge said overcoming her shock to turn sharply to Keith.

 

“Please don’t lecture me, I already got that from Shiro.”

 

“Wait you were fighting with Shiro about me?” Lance asked.

 

“Uh, Lance… That’s _complicated_.”

“I don’t understand, why is Pidge mad, why is Shiro mad? Is there something wrong with us being friends?”

 

“No, no Lance it’s not that.”

 

“Wait does he remember? Oh my god, Keith!”

 

“He remembers some stuff.”

 

“What _stuff_?” Pidge asked sharply

 

“Um me, at the Garrison at least.”

 

“And you!” Lance cut in excitedly to Pidge.

 

“What?’ Pidge asked.

 

“Wait when did that happen? Did the uniform work?”

 

“No, no. I found pictures, one of you and me and one of me and Pidge and it was a trigger I guess, I remembered her, a little bit at least.”

 

“Keith,” Pidge hissed “I need to talk to you _in private_.”

 

“Okay, okay. I’ll be right back, okay?” Keith said to Lance, he nodded and so Keith let Pidge lead him outside to the parking lot where there was no chance of Lance overhearing them.”

 

“Keith, what the hell are you doing? How did Lance get in your apartment?”

 

“Um, I let him in?”

 

Pidge glared “Tell me for real, start from the beginning.”

 

Keith sighed “Lance paid Veronica a surprise visit the other day while I was over for dinner with Shiro and Curtis. We were all pretended we didn’t know him but being around us triggered something I guess. He had a minor breakdown while we were there he remembered something, the crash I think, he didn’t talk about it, but he told Veronica all these things about how it kills him that he’s in love with someone he can’t even remember,” Keith’s voice cracked and Pidge took his hand her previously sharp gaze softening slightly.

 

Keith took a deep breath and then continued “When he left I knew I shouldn’t go after him but I couldn’t stop myself, I told him I could help him get his memories back.”

 

“Keith you didn’t,” Pidge said.

 

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have, it was a terrible idea. But Pidge, it’s working! He remembers me, he remembers you!”

 

“I’m happy about that Keith, I know I shouldn’t be but I am, I thought I’d probably never see him again and I thought if I did he wouldn’t even know my name, but he did today. And it makes me so happy, but it’s selfish Keith. There was a reason they didn’t try to get his memories back, his family decided it was for the best.”

 

“No, the Garrison _told_ his family what decision they should make, they said it was for the best. Lance wants to remember.”

 

“Because he doesn’t know what he’s forgotten! It’ll break him, Keith.”

 

Keith shook his head “No, no I don’t believe that. Lance is stronger than anyone gives him credit for, you’ve been underestimated too many times to be doing the same to him!”

 

“I- I dunno Keith, this seems like it’s going to end badly.”

 

“He had a breakdown yesterday, he remembered things and it was too much for him, he was sobbing, I took him home and he had a bath then we watched movies for the rest of the night, he woke up today ready to go through it all again. He wants to remember he knows he’s going to remember things that hurt him and despite that he’s ready. Lance is strong Pidge.”

 

“You’re right.” Pidge sighed taking off her glasses to rub her eyes.

 

“I am?’

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Shiro didn’t seem to think so.”

 

“Well, Shiro can go fuck himself.”

 

Keith snorted. “I agree.”

 

“Okay so how have you been getting Lance’s memories back you said something about triggers?”

 

“I- uh yeah, why?”

 

“Because I’m going to help, you dumbass.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter: Pidge. 
> 
>  
> 
> Whoop!!
> 
> (I edited this super fast, I'm on a time crunch, let me know if there are any mistakes.)


	7. Negative

 

Pidge sat on Keith’s kitchen counter swinging her legs as Lance flitted around the kitchen humming a pop song Pidge vaguely recognized.

 

He was making pancakes or maybe waffles, Pidge didn’t know yet. When she’d come back into the apartment with Keith he’d been going through Keith’s food looking completely at home. Keith had retreated to his bedroom mumbling something about cleaning up boxes leaving Pidge to hop up on the counter and listen to Lance’s humming as he made a general mess in the kitchen.

 

“So,” Pidge said to Lance watching him whisk the pancake/waffle batter, “uh, how have you been?”

 

Lance shrugged looking over at her “About as good as I can be I suppose.”

 

Pidge’s brow furrowed at Lance’s look of nonchalance, like living for years with your family and everyone you knew lying to you was no big deal. She was about to voice this when she realized he probably didn’t know that his family had been in on the whole thing. She snapped her mouth shut.

 

Lance raised an eyebrow, “What?”

 

“Uh, nothing.”

 

Lance sighed dramatically “Looks like I have another friend who will be keeping things from me, but it’s cool, I’ll remember everything soon.” He smiled brightly and Pidge was hit by what Keith had said earlier about Lance being strong. He was absolutely right.

 

Lance turned away from Pidge and started rifling through Keith’s cabinets. When he didn’t seem to find what he was looking for he shouted down the hallway: “Keith!”

 

He was met by silence.

 

 “Keeeeith!”

 

“What?” Came Keith muffled response.

 

“Where’s your waffle maker?”

 

Ah, so he was making waffles.

 

“Why do you need my waffle maker?” Keith emerged from his room to shout down the hall.

 

“Because I’m making waffles ya dummy.”

 

With a sigh Keith entered the kitchen and pulled out a waffle maker from the cabinet above the microwave.

 

“Wow,” Lance said as Keith handed it to him “I half expected you not to even have one.”

 

Keith shrugged “Waffles are important, plus Hunk insisted I have one.”

 

As Keith said Hunk’s name Lance froze and Keith’s eyes widened realizing his mistake. He looked to Pidge in panic as Lance’s eyes glazed over. She barely had time to jump from the counter before the focus came back into his eyes and he nodded hopping seamlessly back into the conversation.

 

“Oh yeah, he’s the one who taught me to make waffles. I mean actual good ones, my family had banned from the kitchen before he taught me how to cook.”

 

“Did you just remember that?” Pidge asked in shock.

 

“Well… yeah?”

 

“Does it usually happen like that?” She asked curiously.

 

“Not exactly like that, when I remembered you and Keith it was… harder. It took a lot more to trigger the memories, not just a name.”

 

“Hm,” Pidge said thoughtfully “why was it harder, what did you remember about us?”

 

“Well with Keith I remembered us at the Garrison and how I didn’t like him, I was jealous, and I remembered-- well no, not exactly remembered, but I _knew_ that we had become friends somehow. And then I remembered something else…” His eyes flashed briefly to Keith “But I don’t want to talk about that.”

 

Pidge took in Keith’s stiff shoulders and figured whatever memory Lance was referring to it was between them.

 

“Okay and what about me?”

 

“Um, I remembered who you were, like how you were smart and like a little sister to me. And I remembered you comforting me about something. You seemed sad, or scared. I know I was scared and I was asking for your help but I don’t know what we were talking about.”

 

Pidge knew immediately what Lance was referring to. It was a moment that haunted her dreams and stuck in her heart as one of her biggest regrets. She’d never seen him look as small as he did in that moment, so lost and scared. He’d begged her for help, for an answer and she hadn’t been able to give him one. She wished so often that she had told him not to do it, that she had urged him to find another way. But she hadn’t, instead, she had confirmed his suspicions that his stupid suicidal plan would work. It had been _her_ fault that Lance had gone through with it, that he’d almost died and lost all her memories. But nobody knew that. When Lance went through with his plan she’d pretended to be just as shocked as everyone else. She still wasn’t sure why but it was a secret Pidge believed she would take to her grave. But now with Lance remembering she wasn’t so sure. In fact, she had a feeling that this whole thing was going to expose a whole lot of secrets. She wasn’t the only paladin who had them. As she mulled through the memory and compared what Lance had said about remembering Keith an idea struck her.

 

“Wait Lance, the memory of Keith was it negative?”

 

Lance hesitated “What do you mean negative? I wasn’t thinking badly of him.” He frowned.

 

“No, no. Just like, did you feel any emotions that would be considered negative, sadness, anger, fear?”

 

“Guilt?”

 

Keith crossed his arms stiffly, clearly uncomfortable with talking of this memory. Pidge had a feeling that he like her knew exactly what Lance had remembered, even though Lance himself didn’t understand.

 

“Yeah, guilt definitely counts.”

 

“Okay, then I guess I felt guilty, and sad, maybe scared too.”

 

“And the memory with me?”

 

“Panicked, hopeless, terrified.”

 

“And when you remembered Hunk just now, any negative emotions connected?”

 

“Uh, no… It was peaceful.”

 

“Okay!” Pidge jumped excitedly “So I’d say from what you’ve told me that memories that have undertones of negative emotions and things that you associate with hurt, sadness, guilt, and fear as you said are harder to remember. Sometimes when people suffer amnesia it’s because their brain is trying to protect them by repressing memories that would cause them pain, or take a toll on them.”

 

“But I lost my memories because I had a head injury, the doctors said I was lucky I didn’t suffer further brain damage.”

 

“It could be both?” Pidge shrugged “I don’t know, medical stuff isn’t my specialty but I’ll do some research. I have a friend at The Garrison who’s like a prodigy doctor. She’s used to answering my questions by now so I’ll go talk to her at work tomorrow.”

 

“Wait you work at The Garrison?”

 

“I do, my whole family does actually. Well, Matt comes and goes, honestly I don’t really know what he does half the time. But yeah I work at The Garrison, split my time between there and Olkarion.”

 

“Matt is your brother right?” Lance asked.

 

“Right,” Pidge confirmed.

 

“And Olkarion is a planet? I’ve heard people mention it before.”

 

“Yeah! It’s my favorite planet besides Earth. They’re basically the most advanced technological race in the known universe!”

 

“Wow.” Lance smiled, “That sounds so cool. I’d love to visit another planet someday.”

 

Pidge felt an uneasy tug in her chest, she wished she could tell him that he had already been to Olkarion. Instead, she said: “You could.”

 

At that Lance’s eyes widened “What do you mean?”

 

“Well, space travel isn’t normalized on Earth as much as other planets, mostly only scientists and scholars leave, but compared to what it used to be, there’s plenty of ways to get into space if you know the right people. And since you’re standing in a room with someone who goes to space pretty regularly, and Keith who spends more time in space than on Earth, I’d say you definitely know the right people.”

 

“I could go to space?” He asks in wonder.

 

“You’ve been to space.” Keith pointed out.

 

“Well yeah, but I was up there like two weeks or something, that’s not long. And I don’t remember it!”

 

When Lance said two weeks it startled her, she’d forgotten that The Garrison had lied to him about how long he’d been in a coma.

 

Lance opened his mouth to speak, no doubt about Pidge’s suggested visit to space, when there was a knock at Keith’s door cutting him off.

 

Keith turned to them “Quick go hide, with my luck that’s probably Coran or Romelle and we’ll have yet another situation on our hands when they find out Lance is here.”

 

“I don’t want to hide.” Pidge crossed her arms. “Can’t I stay out? I visit you all the time.”

 

“Better safe than sorry.” Keith said firmly “Go.”

 

“C’mon,” Lance said, “I want you to tell me more about space.”

 

Pidge sighed but let Lance grab her by the hand and lead them down the hall to Keith’s bedroom.

 

“Stay quiet!” Keith hissed as they disappeared inside.

 

There was another knock and Keith quickly made his way to the door praying it was just Mormons or something. It wasn’t. As Keith swung his door open he was met by his brother. Shiro looked up in surprise like he hadn’t expected Keith to open it.

 

“I thought you were ignoring me.” He said.

 

“No, I was just busy. I didn’t realize it was you, though if I did I would have ignored you.”

 

Shiro sighed pinching the bridge of his nose, “Look, Keith… Can I please come in? I want to talk.”

 

“Why so you can ridicule me again?”

 

“I didn’t mean it like that Keith.”

 

“Oh don’t fucking pull that, you and I both know exactly how you meant it.”

 

Shiro took a deep breath no doubt trying to control his frustration “Can I please come in? I don’t want to do this out here.”

 

Keith stepped outside slamming the door shut behind him. “No.” He said crossing his arms, “You can do this right here or you can leave me the hell alone.”

 

“Okay, Okay.” Shiro held his hands up in surrender “Look, I’m sorry for what I said. I know I insinuated that you were using Lance. That was wrong of me. I know you love him and there’s nothing wrong with that. I shouldn’t have acted like there was. I- I just don’t want you to get hurt Keith. I love you, you’re like my little brother, and I’m so proud of who you’ve grown up to be.” He ran a hand through his hair a sad expression crossing his features.

 

“Keith you were there for me during my lowest point. It’s because of you that I was able to move on from my grief for Adam. If not for you helping me I’m not sure I’d be getting married in two weeks. I just wanted to spare you from getting hurt. And I know you’re not a child anymore and you can take care of yourself but still, no one wants to see their kid get hurt.”

 

“I get that Shiro I do. But _you_ hurt me. Saying all that stuff, acting like the way we treated Lance didn’t matter just because he didn’t remember. You lost memories when you were captured by the Glara! That doesn’t make the things you forgot any less valid.”

 

“I know. It was awful of me to say that.” Shiro admitted “I guess it’s just easier to live with my guilt if I can justify it. _I do_ miss Lance too you know. I may not act like it but I do. And I have live with the guilt every of—“ Shiro choked on his word.

 

Keith reached out and placed a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. He looked up at Keith and he could see the hurt in Shiro’s eyes. He took a deep breath determined to continue.

 

“There are so many nights when I wish that I’d been able to stop Lance. When I beat myself up over not seeing it sooner. What if I had been better to him when I was the black paladin. If I’d listened and gained his trust more would he have come to me? Could we have found another option to defeat Haggar and the Galra?” Shiro said quietly his voice almost a whisper.

 

Shiro’s words hit Keith in the darkest parts of his heart. They were things that he’d asked himself a million times before. All the ‘what if’s and guilt. The rethinking and replaying every moment leading up to it. Wondering if there was something he could have done.

 

Keith could say all these things, tell Shiro he understood. But there was no need, Shiro already knew. So he stepped forward and pulled his brother into a hug. Shiro responded immediately wrapping his arms firmly around Keith’s shoulders.

 

“I love you, Keith.” Shiro whispered against Keith's shoulders.

 

 “I love you too.”

 

When they broke apart both of them were wiping away tears.

 

“I forgive you, for what you said. It wasn’t okay but I understand.”

 

Shiro nodded “There’s something I wanted to ask.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I want Lance to come to my wedding. I don’t know if he’d want to or if he should. But I want him to. Do you think you could ask him for me?”

 

“I- wow. Yeah, I could do that, I think he’ll be really happy to be invited.”

 

“Okay!” Shiro said happily “Call me with his answer alright?”

 

“Will do.”

 

Shiro pulled Keith into one last hug before letting go and stepping towards the parking lot.

 

“I need to get home, I have a bunch of paperwork to go over. But I’ll see you soon okay?”

 

“Sure.” Keith smiled.

 

Shiro waved and turned on his heel heading towards his car and Keith felt something in him ease.

 

Maybe this wasn’t all going to end as badly as Pidge suggested. Maybe this was one of the few times she was actually wrong.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this exactly a month after my last update because I have tact.
> 
> Seriously though it's a complete coincidence I finished it exactly a month later. I have been buuusy, and also procrastinating. Lol I wrote an entire fic and started writing another one just so I wouldn't have to write this one, which is absurd because it's one of my favorites I've written. But that's just who I am as a person.
> 
> I will warn you though that updates will be slower than they used to be (hopefully not as slow as this last update though), I'm sorry but that's just how I write. I popped out six chapters in a month and then it took me an entire other month to write just one chapter. 
> 
> But anyways I hope you enjoy this chapter, and comments and kudos are always appreciated. <3


	8. Everything

 

It was late into the night. Keith, Pidge and Lance had spent the rest of the day just hanging out, enjoying being together. It was around midnight when they decided that Pidge would stay the night. Three hours later Lance was dead asleep on the couch across the room while Pidge and Keith were both still awake sitting on the floor side by side. It usually happened like that when the team used to have sleepovers during their time in space. Shiro would always pass out early when the night had barely begun, Coran would go next followed by Hunk and Lance and then Keith, Pidge and Allura would stay up longest, sometimes until everyone else had woken up and was ready for breakfast.

 

At the thought of Allura, a stab of sadness suddenly struck him.

 

His thoughts must have shown on his face because Pidge leaned forward “What are you thinking about?” she asked quietly.

 

Keith hesitated for a moment before whispering, “Allura.”

 

Pidge’s brow furrowed and she let out a sad sigh “I miss her.”

 

Keith nodded “Me too. Sometimes…” Keith started but trailed off.

 

Pidge touched his arm encouragingly and he continued “Sometimes I look at our team now, and it just hurts so badly. We were incredible, Pidge. Y’know, team Voltron, saving the universe. We learned so much and saved so many people and I have never felt more like I had a place then I did in Voltron. Sure, there were a lot of sucky things that came with being defenders of the universe and Voltron, and there were a lot of bumps in the road. Despite that, towards the end, we were such a good team. But now--“ his voice cracked with emotion “I spend most of my time with the Blade, you’re always working either here or Olkarion, Hunk’s in space supposedly running a restaurant but I wouldn’t really know because I haven’t heard from him since the war ended. Shiro is happy now and he’s getting married but he still carries so much weight on his shoulder and he blames himself for what happened. Until a few days ago Lance was basically just a ghost, and Allura is gone.” He choked out the last part “Coran has never been the same since.”

 

“I get what you mean.” Pidge said heavily “We’re legends now, we were supposed to be _glorious_.” She spit out the last word bitterly “But instead we’re scattered across the universe and most of us have let out names be disconnected from Voltron. The only people that the public knows as paladins are you and Shiro. The rest of us ran away.”

 

“The only reason I didn’t was because the Garrison didn’t let me, I was the leader and they needed me to be the one to tell Earth that we were strong and could rebuild,” Keith admitted. “I wanted to. Voltron was a symbol of hope once, maybe it still is to some people. But for me now, Voltron only represents failure.”

 

Pidge nodded pain apparent on her expression “We lost too much Keith.” She whispered. In the dark quiet of night with only the sound of Lance’s deep breathing, it hit Keith hard. “Maybe it’s selfish and wrong of me, but sometimes I feel like it wasn’t worth the cost. When we first formed our team and everything was so new I resented Allura, I saw her as some thousand-year-old snooty princess who’d ruined our lives. Forced us to take on this mission and put the weight of the universe on our shoulders. We were kids. But eventually, I realized that she was a kid too. She didn’t want it any more than us.”

 

“Maybe it wasn’t worth the cost, but either way the cost was fair wasn’t it? We saved the universe but lost everything.”

 

“We lost everything.” Pidge repeated, a moment of silence followed while they both reflected on that until Pidge suddenly said: “I need to tell you something.”

 

“What?”

 

She bit her lip fidgeting the sleeve of her shirt before taking a deep breath “I knew.” She whispered so quietly that Keith barely caught it.

 

“Knew what?”

 

“I knew what Lance was going to do.” She said in a rush and suddenly it was all pouring out “He came to me begging me to help him. He wanted to know if I thought it would work. I confirmed it for him. I let him do it! It’s all my fault, Keith. I was so scared and so tired, we were all shaken up, Lance especially. It was the day we almost lost you. I’d never seen him cry like that. He figured it out then before I did. He brought it to me and begged me to give him answers, to tell him if I thought he was right.” Tears were streaming down her face now as her last words came out in a choked sob “I told him he was.”

 

Keith was frozen in shock for a moment, he wanted to comfort his friend but stronger than that was the urge to get more information from her. “What do you mean he figured it out?  Lance had it planned?”

 

“He figured out that there was a price to pay. The cost, you said it was fair. You were right.”

 

“What do you mean? We _had_ to lose everything to win the war?”

 

“Yes.” Pidge closed her eyes and the memory echoed Lance’s face pale, panicked and tears streaked. He was always the brightest thing in that castle, happy, positive, making stupid jokes and bringing up the mood. She’d never seen him like that and it terrified her. “Balance. It’s a fundamental part of everything, the universe survives on it. It’s how there’s always a good guy to stop the big bad guy, there’s the Galra and there was Voltron. There’s a cost to everything, it’s why the bad guys always seem so overpowered, because they’re willing to pay more for what they want. Sacrifice their own soldiers in order for victory, while the good guys don’t want to throw away lives.”

 

“So we paid the cost?”

 

“Yes, because of Lance.”

 

_Because of Lance._

 

 

\--

Lance woke to sunlight streaming through Keith’s blinds and onto his face. He stretched and sat up, as he tried to get off the couch he nearly stepped on Keith and Pidge who’d fallen asleep on the floor. Lance stumbled and tripped over them in his attempt to not kill his friends. He hit the floor hard, Pidge and Keith didn’t even react, they were dead asleep. After his near-death experience, Lance picked himself up from the floor with a groan and headed to the bathroom to shower.

 

He shut the bathroom door quietly and started up the water. He wasn’t sure why he was trying to be quiet though, if him almost breaking a bone didn’t wake them up Lance doubted him closing the door too hard would. Shaking his head he peeled off his clothes and stepped into the shower sighing as the hot water hit his back.

 

He rolled his eyes at Keith’s generic bar of soap and two-in-one shampoo and conditioner but used it nonetheless vowing to convince Keith to buy something that wasn’t complete shit. Once he was as clean as he was gonna get with Keith’s horrid two-in-one he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He dried off quickly as he always did doing his best to avoid seeing the various scars on his body that Lance had no explanation for. Over the years he’d been able to distinguish some of them, there was a huge spot on his back that was a lighter color than the rest of his skin that Lance had decided was probably from a burn, a few slashes, one on his lower hip and thigh that looked like a scar from a stab. There were more than a few that looked almost like from a burn but in a very concentrated way. He’d never been able to figure out where exactly those had come from.

 

Trying to put the scars out of his mind Lance wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out of the bathroom. Keith was awake in the kitchen, Lance could hear him humming softly accompanied by the sound of the frying pan. He made his way over to the kitchen intending to ask Keith to borrow some new clothes.

 

“Hey,” Lance said.

 

“Hey,” Keith responded his back turned as he cooked, he flipped what appeared to be eggs and then turned.

 

As he faced Lance he froze mouth open.

 

“What?” Lance asked.

 

Keith shook his head and turned his gaze to the floor “You’re not wearing clothes.”

 

“I have a towel,” Lance pointed out “I’m not naked. I actually was wondering if I could borrow something to wear.”

 

“Oh yeah of course,” Keith said still not looking at Lance “you can go in my room and choose whatever you want.”

 

“Cool, thanks.”

 

He turned and headed down the hall to Keith’s room failing to hear Pidge say to Keith: “Gay.”

 

In Keith’s room, Lance pulled on a pair of dark blue jeans and Keith’s least emo shirt which was a t-shirt that was dark red rather than black.

 

 

Once he was dressed he was about to leave but something caught his eye. The box from yesterday. Lance paused unsurely, he knew he shouldn’t go snooping through Keith’s things. But, technically it was his stuff was Lance reasoned with himself. He hesitated for a moment more before heading over to the box and sitting down in front of it. He sat down and opened the box setting aside his old uniform and the two pictures he’d already seen yesterday. The next photo in the stack was one of Keith beside Shiro. Keith was smiling widely his nose scrunched like he’d just heard a funny joke, he seemed unaware of the fact that a photo was being taken while Shiro was looking straight into the camera with a disapproving look, maybe scolding the person who was taking the picture. There was no way for Lance to know for sure but he had a feeling that he was the one who was taking the picture. He paused on the background, it looked like a ship of some sort. Lance studied the picture for a moment before putting it aside with a sigh, it brought up more questions than answers. Was he the one who took the picture? If so was that in space? It didn’t look like it could be the Garrison and Shiro’s arm was missing which Lance knew had happened after he left for the Kerberos mission. Which would mean that Lance really was in space with Keith and Shiro? But what did that mean then?

 

Lance shook his head, there was no use trying to conjure up answers out of empty air. He turned to the next photo. This one had Lance in it. He was wearing the same stupid jacket he’d been wearing in the picture with Pidge except, this time he was sitting next to a girl with long silver hair and weird marks on her cheeks. It looked like they were at some sort of alien carnival. He was smiling at the girl like she’d hung the moon and the girl was grinning at the camera with a perfect little smile. An ache of grief swallowed Lance for a moment though he didn’t know why. But no memories emerged by looking at the picture, no flashes of the past. He brought the picture closer to his face to get a better look, he noted that the girl’s smile looked almost sad though the Lance in the picture seemed happily unaware. He stared for a moment longer before he felt suddenly anxious and dropped the picture with the rest. Nothing good was coming of looking at these.

 

Lance pushed them away and looked farther into the box. Most of the things in it meant very little to him, at least now. They may have been something to the parts of himself he lost but now nothing really struck a chord. There was a jar full of weird looking rocks, notebooks full of writing in another language. Eventually, he pulled out a book with foreign plants and flowers pressed in its pages along with brief descriptions of what they were and where they came from. He recognized the handwriting as his own.

 

The door opened as Lance was flipping through the book startling him.

 

“Oh, sorry.” Keith apologized “I didn’t mean to scare you I just wanted to let you know that breakfast is…” he trailed off his eyes finding the book in Lance’s hands and his brow furrowing.

 

Lance scrambled up still clutching the book in his hands. “I didn’t mean to like, go through your stuff. The box was just there and I was curious.”

 

“No uh, it’s fine.” Keith said, “it’s your stuff anyway, not really mine.”

 

“Right…” Lance said turning the book over in his hands “This was mine?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith said stepping closer “You’d collect information and samples of plants on different planets.”

 

“But there are so many different places in here. I can’t have possibly gone to all of these in the two weeks I was gone.”

 

“Not in two weeks,” Keith shrugged “But you did go all those places.”

 

“What are you saying? That I wasn’t gone for two weeks?”

 

“Time is different in space,” Keith said simply.

 

Lance stood for a moment processing what Keith had said. “What?” he asked.

 

Keith didn’t answer instead he just shrugged and sat down on his bed watching Lance. Hesitating Lance bit his lip and then followed Keith sitting beside him. The sat in silence for a moment Lance carefully holding the book in his lap. Keith reached out and touched the book gently.

 

“You loved that thing,” Keith said softly “used to take it everywhere we went. It was that book that made me see you for the first time.”

 

Lance had a lot of questions as to what exactly Keith was talking about but he kept quiet because he knew that Keith was opening up and giving him pieces of his past.

 

“I guess you’ve gathered so far that you and I didn’t always have the best relationship. You annoyed me for a long time, I didn’t really see you as a person as much as the guy that made my life extremely difficult. But then one day we wound up together on a mis—“ he paused mid-sentence rethinking what he was saying “well, it didn’t matter what we were doing. Point was, you were being less annoying than usual and I decided to ask you about the book. You lit up when I did and started going on about all the plants you’d discovered and how you were helping Hunk figure out which ones we could eat. That was the first time I realized that you were just a kid same as everyone else and you had hobbies and things you enjoyed. I also realized that I liked to hear you talk about them.” Keith took a breath. If this was Lance as he used to be with all his memories Keith never would have told him any of this, but now he didn’t know exactly why he was saying it. A part of him hoped that when Lance got all his memories back that he’d hear the things Keith was saying in a different light.

 

“Keith,” Lance said softly “Did you love me?”

 

Keith inhaled sharply not expecting the question. “Yeah,” He breathed surprising himself with his honesty “I guess I did.”

 

“Did I love you?”

 

Keith let out a humorless laugh “Lance, I have no idea. If you did you certainly didn’t show it. Every sign would point towards no.”

 

Lance frowned. “I may not have my memories but I feel like that’s wrong.”

 

Keith shrugged “Can’t change the past.” He stood “C’mon breakfast is probably cold and I’m sure Pidge ate without us.”

 

“Uh okay, can you just give me a minute?”

 

Keith nodded and made his way out of the room leaving the door open behind him.

 

Once he was gone Lance turned back to the book he opened it flipping through the pages and gently tracing his words and the various plants with his finger. As he got farther into the book Lance noticed a change. The plants and descriptions began to be accompanied by little doodles. Pictures of stars and lions showed up the most. The drawings were actually really good, Lance didn’t remember being that good at art, but he also hadn’t tried drawing anything as long as he could remember.

 

In the book, there were lions of every color, glowing bright side by side, but as he turned pages the lions became a single lion scarred and beaten standing alone surrounded by scribbled darkness. The lines of the drawings were harsh and almost erratic filling him with a foreboding feeling. As Lance kept flipping the pages became empty of any plants instead they were filled only with drawings and scribbled notes, some of them written so hard that there were holes in the pages, he couldn’t make sense of what they meant. It was all random words that meant nothing to him. Things like “cost”, “sacrifice” and “price to be paid” were thrown around a lot along with equations and things written in the same alien language he’d seen in the notebooks earlier.  The pages got darker and darker until they were almost completely black with this insane writing. And then…

 

It just stopped.

 

Lance flipped the page and suddenly there was a flower there, a dark red one that almost looked like a rose if not for the blue leaves and stem. There was a description of the flower written in the same neat handwriting from the beginning of the book along with additional information. The flower only bloomed on the purple moon every hundred years on the planet Afortide. Lance touched it and tried to imagine how he’d come to be in possession of such a flower. Lance turned the page not knowing what to expect, more insane scribbling or more plants.

 

But he got neither.

 

Instead, when he turned the page he came face to face with a picture, taped carefully into the book along with a single petal from the red flower on the previous page.

 

It was Keith.

 

He was younger than he was now but older than he was in the picture Lance had seen yesterday and with the scar on his cheek. But he looked different than the Keith Lance knew now. There were bags under his eyes and his scar looked newer and painful but despite that, he had a small smile on his face and his eyes were clearer and he was painted golden by the sunset behind him. It took Lance a minute to figure out what the difference between this Keith and current Keith was but once he did it struck him like a freight train. Keith was _hopeful_. He was looking at Lance who was taking his picture and he was smiling, he believed that everything was going to be alright. Keith now, already knew how everything played out.

 

This time, unlike the other picture Lance was sure he’d been the one to take it. He knew it in bones in a way that he wasn’t sure he knew anything else.

 

The picture was worn and cracked which told Lance that it’d been looked at a lot. Obviously, it had been special to him.

 

Lance carefully removed it from where he’d stuck it in the book and slipped it into his pocket.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am six days into Nanowrimo. I've yet to cry. so I'd call it a success.   
> I've spent so much time writing that I stopped using "u" while texting instead of "you" and am capitalizing things and even using comas. Now all my texts look so formal and I hate myself. But it's fine :')   
> In other news, I've written 5,000 words for this fic in the past six days (while juggling schoolwork and college stuff) and there's 10,000 to go. If all goes to well I will have finished writing the entire fic by November 17th and then I'll probably have to finish editing. But by the end of November, I will be done and it'll hopefully all be posted for your enjoyment!   
> Pray for me y'all.


	9. Everyone Is Lying

“So,” Keith said over breakfast “When I talked to Shiro yesterday he wanted me to ask you something.”

 

“What?” Lance asked curiously.

 

“He wanted me to invite you to his wedding.”

 

“What?” Lance asked jumping up “He wants me to go to his wedding?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith nodded.

 

“Oh my god! Yes, I would love to go, I’m so honored that he invited me!” He said excitedly      

Keith smiled softly at Lance’s enthusiasm “Okay, I’ll let him know.”

 

Lance smiled back brightly and Pidge rolled her eyes which went unnoticed by the two of them.

 

There was suddenly a loud beeping noise and Keith jumped up “Shit,” he said to himself “where’d I put it?” he looked around the room until he said “Aha!” and grabbed his communicator off the counter.

 

“Hey,” He said answering the call.

 

 _“Hey Keith,”_ Shiro said.

 

“Oh uh, I told Lance about your invitation to the wedding. He says he’d love to go.”

 

 _“Oh great!” he paused “I mean a little nerve-wracking, I’m breaking the rules.”_ He said gravely.

 

“It’s fine,” Keith assured him “It’s not like you’re telling him anything.”

 

_“Right, right. Let’s just be glad Curtis and I wanted a smaller ceremony and didn’t invite any co-workers. Otherwise, we could get in trouble with the Garrison and I could lose my job and—“_

 

“Shiro,” Keith said cutting off his brother’s nervous train of thought “Calm down. It’ll be fine. Now, why were you calling?”

 

_“Oh, right! Well, Hunk’s coming back to Earth. For the wedding.”_

 

“What?” Keith said in shock “He’s coming back?”

 

_“Yeah, I was finally able to get in contact with him.”_

 

“How?”

 

_“Well, Hunk may be impossible to get in touch with, Shay, however, was just difficult. But once I was able to make contact with her she led me to Hunk and we were able to talk. He agreed to come to the wedding.”_

 

“Oh my god,” Keith breathed “When was this?”

 

 _“Last night.”_ Shiro chuckled _“I can’t believe it either. He’s actually due to get here in like an hour.”_

 

“How did you get him to come back, I thought he never wanted to see us again.”

 

 _“He needed time to heal.”_ Shiro said softly “ _And I might have told him about seeing Lance at Veronica’s and the whole fiasco now. I made it clear that Lance still doesn’t remember anything and Hunk can’t remind him or talk about Voltron around him. But I guess he just wanted the chance to see him.”_

 

“And you’re going to let him?”

 

Shiro _sighed “Look, Keith, I know you see my position on this as the_ bad guy _, but I missed Lance too and I’m not going to deny Hunk the chance to see him again. As long as the Garrison doesn’t know, and c’mon if Lance hasn’t remembered anything so far then I don’t think he’s going to.”_

 

“Right…” Keith said.

 

_“So any way that’s why I called. And also I’m picking Hunk up at the port in an hour, and I wanted us to all have dinner tonight.”_

“What do you mean us all?”

 

_“I mean you, me, Curtis, Hunk and Pidge and Lance, if they would like to come.”_

 

“Really?”

 

_“Yes.”_

 

“Okay, I guess I’ll see you tonight?”

 

_“Yeah, at six, okay?”_

 

“Sounds good.”

 

 _“Okay,”_ Shiro said _“Bye Keith.”_

 

“Bye,” Keith responded.

 

He hung up and turned to Lance who was watching him.

 

“What was that about?” Lance asked.

 

“Hunk is coming back to Earth for Shiro’s wedding. He wants us all to have dinner tonight.”

 

“Me too?”

 

“Yeah and Pidge.”

 

“Holy shit,” Pidge said, “we’re going to see Hunk tonight.”

 

“Yeah,” Keith said taking a deep breath “we are.”

 

\--

 

Pidge went home to change so Keith and Lance arrived at Shiro’s place without her. Keith didn’t bother to knock stepping inside.

 

“Shiro!” Keith called.

 

“We're in the living room!” Shiro yelled back.

 

Keith leaned into Lance as they headed towards the living room “Remember,” Keith whispered “you’re not supposed to know who Hunk is. Or Pidge either.”

 

“I remember,” Lance whispered back. “That’s kind of the problem.” He joked

 

Keith laughed covering his mouth with his hand to muffle his snort. As they stepped into the living room Keith moved away from Lance, he didn’t miss the way Shiro’s eyes darted between them as they entered.

 

“Hey,” Shiro greeted standing up from where he sat on the couch.

 

Lance waved “Hey Shiro,” He nodded “Curtis.” He turned to Hunk “And you?”

 

Hunk stood swallowing nervously “Um Hi! I’m Hunk.” He said a bit too loudly.

 

Lance smiled easily like he didn’t already know that “I’m Lance, it’s nice to meet you.”

 

Hunk held out his hand and they shook hands, though Hunk looked like he wanted to pull Lance into a hug instead. He also looked like he wanted to cry.

 

Thankfully he didn’t instead he turned to Keith and hugged him tightly. “Hey man.” He said when he finally let go and Keith groaned in relief.

 

“Hey, you almost killed me.” He said rubbing his ribs.

 

“You’re being dramatic.”

 

“I’m not dramatic.” He glowered.

 

Hunk smiled patting him on the shoulder “Sure.”

 

“I’m serious, that was a very tight hug.”

 

Before Hunk could respond the front door banged open and Pidge came hurtling into the living room.

 

“Oh my god!” she yelled “I nearly got killed by a grandmother on my way here! I thought grandmas drive slow, not like maniacs, but she was a maniac and she almost killed me!”

 

“My grandmother drives like a maniac,” Lance said unfazed by Pidge’s entrance.

 

She paused for a moment before saying: “Funnily enough, mine does too.”

 

Lance nodded “Are you sure it was the grandmother though? Lack of sleep might be clouding your judgment.”

 

“Fuck you, Lance.”  There was a moment of silence before she realized her mistake “I mean, fuck you random stranger who I’ve never met before today. What’s your name?”

 

There was a moment when Keith could practically hear Shiro’s brain turning. Keith glared at Pidge and Lance started laughing.

 

“Pidge,” Lance said, “You ruin everything.”

 

“Okay double fuck you, Lance.”

 

“So I guess you’ve met Pidge?” Shiro said with a sigh.

 

“Oh yeah, she came to visit Keith yesterday, and we had a sleepover. Sorry, Keith told me you wanted to introduce me to your friends tonight and I kinda felt bad that I already met Pidge so we were just going to pretend we hadn’t met.” He shrugged apologetically and Keith let out a silent sigh.

 

He hadn’t been sure how he was going to explain why they’d been pretending that Lance didn’t already know Pidge without revealing that Lance was getting his memories back. But of course, Lance had Keith’s back, like always.

 

“Oh, Lance. It’s fine.” Shiro said accepting Lance’s explanation.

 

While this was happening Pidge had thrown herself on top of Hunk. She was originally pretending that she hadn’t missed him that much but it was clear she had.

 

“So,” Hunk said to Lance once they’d all been seated and Pidge was no longer attached to him like a koala. “How did you meet Shiro and everyone?” It wasn’t exactly subtle but Keith couldn’t blame Hunk, he didn’t know that Lance had some memories back.

 

“Oh well my sister Veronica works at the Garrison, I was in town and so I went to surprise her and she had Keith, Shiro, and Curtis over for dinner. So I got to meet them and then I bumped into Keith while getting breakfast the next day and we hit it off and became friends. So now I’m here.” He said casually.

 

Honestly, Keith was impressed by how easily Lance spun the lie. If he hadn’t known what had really happened he’d probably believe that what Lance was saying was the truth.

 

“Oh cool.” Hunk nodded “You and Keith, uh, hit it off?” Hunk sounded a little confused by this, it wasn’t compatible with what he knew about Keith and Lance. They definitely hadn’t hit when they _actually_ met the first time.

 

“Oh yeah, I mean he’s kind of emo and has terrible taste in hairstyles, but he’s not too bad.”

 

“Hey,” Keith protested glaring and nudging Lance in the ribs,

 

Lance shrugged “Just the truth.” He smiled.

 

Keith tried to glare but Lance smiled was too much. He had that stupid dimple on the right side and well, truth is, Keith was a goner.

 

“Go to hell.” He turned away disgruntled and Lance laughed happily.

 

Hunk smiled sadly, not that Lance noticed.

 

Later while Lance was in the kitchen helping Curtis with the food (because he needed help but Shiro could not cook for shit and Hunk had literally arrived on Earth a few hours earlier.) Hunk turned to Keith.

 

“I can’t believe that he’s here.” Hunk said quietly “And he’s exactly the same.”

 

Keith frowned his gaze turning towards the kitchen where Lance was chatting easily with Curtis. “Not exactly.”

 

“What do you mean?” Hunk asked.

 

Keith hesitated and then shook his head “I mean he’s still Lance, but he’s not _exactly_ the same.”

 

“How so?”

 

Lance’s words from earlier echoed in Keith’s head.

 

_“Did I love you?”_

Keith kept this to himself and instead said: “The things we go through shape who we are, he doesn’t remember a lot of things that made him who he was back then, so he’s not the same.”

 

Lance laughed loudly and joyfully at something Curtis said and Hunk’s expression turned sad “He doesn’t remember what it’s like to kill someone. To have the weight of the universe on his shoulders.”

 

“No,” Keith said trying not to think about the fact that if everything worked out Lance would remember everything soon “he doesn’t.”

 

\--

 

“So Lance,” Hunk said at dinner “what do you do?”

 

“Oh, I run a farm.” He said brightly.

 

“Really?” Hunk said momentarily taken aback.

 

“Yeah,” Lance frowned “is there something wrong with that?”

 

“No, No!” Hunk said quickly “I was just surprised. I dunno, you don’t seem like the type of guy to have a farm.”

 

“I mean, I’m not sure what the farm type is exactly, country boy? Yeehaw?”

 

“Lance no.” Keith sighed.

 

“Hawyee?”

 

Pidge snorted ‘”Heeyaw.”

 

“Yawhee,” Lance responded

 

“Stop.” Keith said groaning “I swear the two of you together make me want to commit homicide.”

 

Lance winked “You flatter me Red.”

 

Shiro flinched at the nickname and Hunk froze.

 

“What?” Lance asked staring around the table at the looks.

 

Pidge caught Keith’s eye and Keith gave a tiny nod unnoticed by anyone else and touched Lance’s thigh under the table. Lance got the message and grabbed Keith’s hand under the table their fingers were intertwined for a moment before Lance let go and Keith was left with the ghost Lance’s warmth.

 

All of this happened in the second it took Shiro to say “That nickname you called Keith? Where’d you get it from?” He was clearly trying to sound casual.

 

“Oh?” Lance said pretending to sound confused and taken aback. Though maybe he was a little confused by why people kept reacting that way when he called Keith that, maybe he was confused as to why he was even calling Keith that, he didn’t know the significance. But god bless him Lance knew exactly what to say “I don’t know actually.” He shrugged “Just instinct or something?”

 

“That’s weird.” Hunk said his eyes darting to Pidge who was carefully not meeting his eyes and then back to Lance.

 

Lance shrugged “I mean I guess, but I’m used to weird, a lot of things in my life are weird.”

 

“How so?” Hunk asked a little too enthusiastically even though he definitely already knew how.

 

“Well,” Lance said like he didn’t already know that Hunk knew why things were weird. Keith shook his head, this was a shit show. “I have amnesia. I apparently was a cadet at the Garrison and then somehow went to space just to crash land back here two weeks later and go into a coma for a few years and when I woke up the last thing I remembered was being thirteen which let me tell you,” He snorted “was a fucking trip because here I was 18 years old but I remembered being thirteen yesterday. So yeah, _weird_.”

 

“That… is very weird.” Hunk agreed a pained looked fleeting across his face.

 

“What’d I tell ya?”

 

\--

 

“So what did you want to talk about?” Shiro asked.

 

They’d had dinner and now everyone was lounging around the living room while Shiro and Hunk cleaned up. Shiro hadn’t wanted Hunk to help but he’d insisted saying he wanted to talk to Shiro about something.

 

“That,” Hunk said quietly pointing at Keith and Lance in the other room.

 

They were talking about something quietly while Pidge tapped away at her communicator showing something to Curtis.

 

Lance leaned into Keith and touched his wrist softly whispering something. Keith frowned and whispered something in return his expression serious.

 

Shiro caught the words “be more careful” and “trigger” but it wasn’t enough to make any sense of their conversation.

 

“They’re hiding something.” Hunk said.

 

“What?” Shiro asked “I mean they’ve been weird, Keith especially, but I talked to him about Lance and it didn’t seem like anything was really _off_. I mean, besides that obvious fact that Lance is here and that’s definitely not supposed to be happening.”

 

Hunk shook his head “Shiro, I think they might have a thing.”

 

“A thing? What kind of thing?”

 

“Y’know, a _thing_ kind of thing.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Shiro said blankly.

 

Hunk sighed “I mean I think they have a romantic thing! Or they’re at least sleeping together.”

 

“Oh,” Shiro said surprised, his eyebrows went up and he turned to watch Keith and Lance again. They were talking to Pidge and Curtis now and as Lance leaned forward to chat with her Keith’s hand touched the small of Lance’s back for a fleeting second before dropping to rest at his side. “ _Oh_!” Shiro said again.

 

Shiro didn’t know that Keith’s soft touch on Lance’s back was to alert him to the fact that they were being watched and clearly talked about even though Keith wasn’t able to discern what Hunk and Shiro were saying.

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Hunk said quietly.

 

 “But as far as Lance knows he met Keith a few days ago, that’s awfully fast to move into something, plus he told Veronica that he’s not interested in getting into a relationship. Not just that either, but Lance was clearly never interested in Keith. I mean after a while we pretty much figured out that Keith had feelings for him, but Lance was only ever into Allura.” Shiro said

 

“Okay but what if that’s not true? I mean it’s what everyone thought, but do you remember the way Lance reacted that last month when Keith nearly died on Thundeg?” Hunk pointed out

 

“Keith was his friend, they were a team. Of course Lance was upset that he almost died.”

 

“Yeah, but it was more than that,” Hunk said “I’ve known Lance a long time but I’d never seen him as devastated as he was then. I’m not sure to what extent or if Lance was even aware of it but I think his feelings for Keith went deeper than being just friends and teammates.”

 

Shiro sighed “You might be right,” he admitted, “But if it’s true I don’t want Keith to know that.”

 

“Why?” Hunk asked surprised.

 

“Look, I seem to be the only one who sees this but Keith and Lance together would be a disaster. It would have been messy back then, but it _definitely_ would be a terrible idea now.”

 

“Shiro,” Hunk said looking a little offended “why on earth would you think that?”

 

“ _Because_ ,” Shiro hissed “they barely got along on a good day when they were friends, but when they were mad at each other? It was awful, even after they got past the initial hate stage. Imagine if you’re right and they are somehow romantically involved? It’s such a bad idea. Firstly, Keith would always have to lie to Lance, and secondly, it’s a complete violation of what we’re supposed to be doing. We could get in trouble if the Garrison finds out about Lance being here now!”

 

Shiro must have said the last part a bit too loudly because heads turned to look at him from the living room.

 

“Is everything alright?” Keith asked.

 

Shiro could feel Keith’s gaze surveying him, honestly, it was a little scary which was weird for Shiro to admit, even just to himself. Keith always seemed to see more than he was supposed to. For someone who was terrible in most social situations he’d learned to read people scarily well, but the worst part was that Keith himself was completely unreadable to Shiro most of the time. Now was no exception.

 

“Um, yeah,” Shiro said quickly “I was just telling Hunk about the proper way to put the dishes away.”

 

Curtis rolled his eyes accepting clearly Shiro’s lie, he was picky about the way the dishes were stacked.

 

Keith however, continued to watch him. He blinked twice and then looked away leaving Shiro feeling like his brain had just been scanned and picked apart.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first time in my life, I'm not just posting one chapter at a time as I write them but I've written ahead and I just started working on chapter 13! 
> 
> I'm very excited for you guys to read chapters 11 and 12 because they're some of my favorite chapters I've written for this fic, and I can't wait for you guys to find out what's going on. I'm so tempted to just dump all the chapters I've written on you guys right now because I love them so much but I'm restraining myself. 
> 
> However, you can expect the next chapter posted probably like within the same hour that I post this one because it's really short and I think posting both this one and the next today is best for the flow of the story.


	10. One Of Us Has To Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you read the title of this chapter?   
> Prepare yourselves.

 

As the night wound down and Keith and Lance were getting ready to leave Lance shook hands goodbye while Keith suffered through hugs.  Lance could tell that Shiro and Hunk wanted to hug him too, but they didn’t.

 

He stuffed his hands in his pockets as Keith quickly hugged Curtis.

 

Lance wasn’t expecting to find anything in his pocket so when his hand touched something he frowned and pulled it out. It was the picture of Keith he’d put in there this morning, he’d completely forgotten about it. He turned it over in his hand intending to put it back in his pocket quickly before anyone noticed, but something on the back caught his eye.

 

He expected it to be a date which is the kind of thing you’d usually see on the back of pictures, but it wasn’t. Instead in a neat careful version of his own handwriting, it said something that chilled lance to his bones.

 

“One of us has to die.”

 

He didn’t mean to read it aloud, but Lance knew he must have when suddenly everyone froze. Pidge jerked upright from where she’d been lounging lazily on the couch her expression horrified.

 

“What?” She asked sharply.

 

Lance blinked trying to respond but something pulled at his consciousness and in a half-dazed state he said it again: “One of us had to die.” He paused taking a shaky breath and whispered his next words “ _But I made a mistake_. I thought it would work but I didn’t account for…” He trailed off “It’s all my fault.” He didn’t even know what he was saying, they didn’t make sense to Lance but they were spilling out nonetheless

 

“Lance,” Keith said stepping forward carefully. He took the photo out of Lance's hand brow furrowing at the writing on the back “Did you write this?”

 

Lance didn’t answer at first, fighting to take back control of his own brain “Yes,” he choked out.

 

“When?”

 

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything Keith!”

 

“Hey, hey.” Keith said softly “It’s okay, I know.”

 

In the midst of Hunk’s confusion as to what the hell was going on, he still couldn’t help but think that it was weird to hear Keith talk like this. So sweetly to Lance.

 

Lance took a deep shuddering breath grabbing at Keith. Keith let him holding his hand gently.

 

“I couldn’t let you die,” Lance whispered to him.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Pidge cut in before Lance could say anything “No!” she said her eyes wide. “Don’t tell him, Lance, please. You don’t want him to know, trust me.”

 

Keith spun to face Pidge “You didn’t tell me everything the other night.” It wasn’t a question but a fact, his voice was calm but dangerous.

 

“You don’t want to know Keith.” She repeated her earlier statement standing her ground.

 

This was the moment Shiro choose to cut in “What the fuck is going on?” he asked angrily.

 

He was met only with silence.

 

He opened his mouth to say something more but Lance cut in his voice shaky “I don’t feel too good.”

 

Keith’s attention was immediately on Lance “What do you mean?”

 

“I feel sick.” He muttered “Someone else is trying to get in my head. I don’t know, all those things I was saying, I don’t remember it.”

 

Keith reached for him “Lance,”

 

“I don’t remember,” He whispered, “but I remember you.”

 

“I know you do.” Keith said carefully. 

 

But Lance was gone, his eyes glazed over. All Keith could do was step back and pray that whatever he was remembering wasn’t going to ruin him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm laughing maniacally like a supervillain right now. You guys have no idea the shit that you're in for. 
> 
> I really hope you're enjoying this fic :)


	11. Thundeg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VIOLENCE GUYS, TRIGGER WARNING, this chapter is pretty violent. I'm warning you now!
> 
> There's torture, people die. 
> 
> But anyway here's our first full jump into Lance's memories.  
> Please enjoy your stay. :)

“This is boring!” Lance declared as he and Keith made their way through the woods.

 

They’d been walking for hours, Keith had insisted that they stay alert but Lance had let his Bayard transform from his gun and hooked it back on his belt hours ago. Keith has scolded him for it but clearly Lance had been smart, Keith’s arms had to be hurting from holding his sword by now.

 

“Don’t whine.” Keith sighed rolling his eyes.

 

“Don’t roll your eyes,” Lance responded sticking out his tongue.

 

Keith sighed again “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

 

“You’re the one who chose me to accompany you on this lovely adventurous mission.” Lance pointed out.

 

“Because it was tactically the best choice.”

 

“What, not because you enjoy spending time with me?” Lance pouted.

 

“No, you’re an asshole.”

 

“Wow thanks, Red.” Lance said, “I’m really feeling the love here.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes yet again and picked up his pace.

 

Lance hurried to catch up with him. They walked in silence for a little while until Lance stopped suddenly.

 

“Oh look!”

 

“What?” Keith asked.

 

“That plant! I’ve never seen anything like it, I want to get a sample for my book.”

 

“Okay, okay.” Keith agreed “But be quick.”

 

He nodded and made his way over to it while Keith took this chance to rest for a moment sitting down on a rock.

 

Lance could admit it, he wasn’t exactly quick. He was so entranced by the plants that he wandered deeper and deeper into the woods taking samples and notes.

 

Collecting the last bit of pollen from a weird orange flower Lance straightened up finally finished. His heart dropped when he realized he couldn’t see Keith anymore.

 

“Keith?” He called.

 

His words echoed through the forest in a way they shouldn’t have considering the density of the trees.

 

But besides the echo, he was met only by silence.

 

“Keith!” He called again.

 

He tried not to panic when there was still no reply.

 

“Okay, okay.” He said to himself “Which way did you come from?”

 

He spun in a circle but everything looked the same.

 

“Shit.” He cursed under his breath.

 

Suddenly there was a crack of someone in the trees and Lance froze his Bayard was in his hands and transformed into his gun in a second.

 

“Keith?” Lance called quietly.

 

Before Lance even had a chance to react there was the coldness of the barrel of a gun pressed to the back of his skull.

 

“I don’t know who Keith is,” A voice said in Lance’s ear “But I’m certainly not him.

 

That was the last thing Lance heard before the gun was brought down hard on the back of his head and he lost consciousness.

 

\--

 

Before he even opened his eyes Lance knew the situation was not good. His head ached and Lance was pretty sure he has a concussion, on top of that his hands were bound behind his back, he didn’t have his Bayard and there was a blinking Altean sign is his helmet indicating that his comms were down.

 

When he opened his eyes he realized the situation was even worse than he’d originally thought he was in some sort of weird cave prison surrounded by foreign soldiers… and some not so foreign soldiers which seemed to be guarding the prison.

 

At this point, Lance was thinking that it was time Voltron stopped responding to emergency beacons. When was it ever not a trap?

 

Of course, these aliens were working with the Galra. What did Allura call them Thundegs? Thundegainians?  Whatever they were called, they clearly sucked.

 

“Ah, the prisoner is awake.” A voice said.

 

Lance twisted and came face to face with a Thundegainian. He was like most of his kind green and kind of elf looking with long blonde hair, a crooked long nose, and a weird outfit made out of the same green wood that Lance has seen from the trees. The pupils of his eyes were boxy like a goat’s, and his eyes were of course, also green. That seemed to be the theme around here.

 

“You’re the guy who knocked me out,” Lance said to him.

 

“Indeed I am.” He smirked, “You really should have been more aware of your surroundings.”

 

“Thanks for the advice.” Lance took a page out of Keith’s book and rolled his eyes “I hear enough of that from my leader but I really appreciate your input.”

 

The alien guy cocked his head to the side “about your _leader_ ,” he smiled wickedly “where is he?”

 

Lance shrugged “How should I know?”

 

The guy stepped close his expression darkening threateningly “You came down here with him, where is he?”

 

“I don’t know. We got split up. He’s probably already out of the atmosphere already.” Lance admitted.

 

He raised his eyebrows “Your leader would leave you?” He said skeptically.

 

“Sure, it’s tactically the best choice.”

 

He squinted at Lance but before he could say something that Lance was sure would be incredibly annoying a guard stepped up nervously.

 

“Prince Nori, your presence is requested in the Great Chamber.”

 

Lance snorted, of course, this douchebag was a prince, they always were, weren’t they?

 

“Fine.” Prince Nori said coolly he shot Lance a harsh glare and said: “I’ll be back and we’ll find your little teammate.” Before sweeping away with the guard.

 

Lance sighed as he left. He really hoped Keith knew what was safe.

 

\--

 

It wasn’t until the next day that Lance was visited by Prince Nori again.

 

“Well, are you feeling any more cooperative today?”

 

“Not really,” Lance said casually.

 

The prince smirked, “We’ll see about that.” He turned to the guards “Take him out. I think we need to get a little closer.”

 

Lance’s heart sunk but he kept his composure as the guards grabbed him and forced him out of his stone cell.

 

“Now,” Prince Nori said unsheathing a dark knife from his belt “Here’s the deal. I need your little leader to turn over the Galra, you, however, I can do whatever I want with.”

 

“What did they promise you in turn for your services?” Lance asked “Safety? Did they promise to spare your planet? Because news flash: the Galra don’t make good on their promises. They’re using you and once they get what they want they’ll destroy your planet because that’s what they do.”

 

The prince laughed at that. “Do you think I care Paladin? The universe isn’t going to exist for much longer anyway, I’m just giving Thundeg the best I can with the time we have left.”

 

“W-what do you mean?” Lance asked.

 

“Really? I heard Voltron was made up of weaklings but I didn’t realize you were idiots too.” He chuckled “There have been whispers, in the darkest places of the universe. That Galra witch is going to erase the universe form existence and Voltron doesn’t have what it takes to stop it.”

 

“The Galra witch, you mean Haggar? But what does Voltron have to do to stop it?”

 

Nori brought his knife to rest at Lance’s throat “I’m going to kill you anyway, so I guess it won’t hurt to tell you. The universe requires balance, everything comes at a cost. Unfortunately the cost of victory isn’t one that Voltron or its coalition is able to pay.”

 

“What is this cost?”

 

“Aw, poor paladin, did you really think I’d tell you that?” Prince Nori brought the knife at Lance’s throat down in a quick slash.

 

Lance flinched a hot pain flaring up. He let his eyes wander around the cave looking for a way out, a gap in the guards. But there was nothing. He was stuck.

 

For the first time, it hit Lance that he might actually die in here. 

 

The prince stepped closer so his face was just inches from Lance’s “Where is your leader. Either you can tell me and survive a little longer or I can just kill you right now. We know no ships have left the atmosphere so he’s still here. We will find him eventually, this is _my_ planet after all. He’s just a foreigner here and he won’t survive long.”

 

“As I told you already, I don’t know!”

 

“Wrong answer.”  Prince Nori hissed.

 

He dug his knife into Lance’s thigh and Lance screamed as it sank into his flesh.

 

“He’s not here.” Lance choked out with tears in his eyes.

 

The prince forced the knife even deeper and all Lance could do was whimper pathetically in pain like a kicked puppy.

 

“He is.” Prince Nori spat out “I’ll ask you one more time, where is the Black Paladin?”

 

“Here.” A voice called.

 

When Lance heard Keith’s voice he probably would have cried if he hadn’t already been crying from the pain.

 

Prince Nori spun in surprise and the guards raised their weapons aiming at Keith.

 

“How did you get in here?” The prince asked angrily.

 

Keith didn’t answer his holding up his sword “Why don’t you come find out?”

 

Prince Nori made one last move at Lance hitting him in the head hard, Lance keeled backward crying out as Nori rushed to take on Keith.

 

Lance knew he had to help him, Keith was good but Lance wasn’t sure he could fight all of the guards and the prince on his own. Gritting his teeth Lance pushed himself up.

 

His hands were still cuffed behind his back and he was badly injured. The truth was Lance was pretty much useless, but he wasn’t about to let Keith fight on his own. They were a team.

 

Lance stood unsteadily. His head was pounding and he wasn’t sure he could really walk but he was determined.

 

Keith kicked one of the guards hard sending him flying over towards Lance.

 

Lance rushed over to the now unconscious guard searching him the best he could with his hands behind his back. He found a knife in the guard’s pocket and quickly set to work using it to break off the wooden sort of handcuffs that had been used to bind his hands. Thankfully the wood wasn’t very strong so after a few minutes of fiddling with the knife behind his back and hoping he wouldn’t accidentally cut off any of his own fingers the cuffs came off landing in the ground without a sound.

 

Lance sighed in relief taking a second to rub his sore wrists before limping over the where the guard’s gun had landed and grabbing it. Once armed he felt a lot better and quickly turned his attention to the fight.

 

Keith was faring well enough against the prince but with all the soldiers on the sidelines taking any chance they could to shoot at Keith he wasn’t able to overpower Nori. Luckily for him, that was something Lance could take care of.

 

He moved in a wide circle around the cave taking out the guards one shot at a time. When they noticed Lance some of them turned their attention to him but as soon as they did he was sending a laser straight through their heads. In no time they were all down and Keith, finally able to fully concentrate on the prince delivered his final blow. Nori went flying across the prison landing in a heap on the other side.

 

Seeing they’d won Lance let the gun slip from his hands and collapsed to the ground unable to stand any longer. Keith turned his attention from Nori and rushed over to Lance.

 

“Lance, oh my god.” He said crouching down in front of him.

 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Lance assured him with a groan “I’ve definitely got a concussion and my leg is pretty fucked, but it’s nothing a healing pod can’t fix.”

 

Keith’s brow furrowed not convinced “Maybe, but we need to get back to the black lion quickly. It’s fine for now but if you lose too much blood that’s an entirely different story.”

 

“Okay, okay.” Lance sighed. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath then we can go.”

 

Keith nodded “Sure.”

 

Lance took a few deep breaths letting his eyes close for a moment. When he opened them Keith was watching him intently wearing an expression that Lance had never seen on Keith before. It was sad but also soft which wasn’t something you saw in Keith often.

 

“What?” Lance asked him.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Lance looked up at him confused “For what?”

 

“For not saving you sooner, for letting you get hurt. I worked as quickly as I could but the place was pretty heavily guarded and I didn’t even know what had happened at first. One moment you were there and then you weren’t. I heard you yell but by the time I got there all that was there was your samples.” Keith looked down at his feet “I-I was scared. I thought you might be…” Keith trailed off seemingly unable to finish the thought.

 

Lance reached for him unsure of how to handle this version of Keith. He never talked about what he was feeling and he certainly never admitted to being scared of Lance being hurt. They just didn’t have that kind of relationship. But here Keith was looking so shaken and clearly admitting to being afraid of losing Lance.

 

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Lance said softly “Sure it took you a little while, but you still saved me. That’s all that matters.”

 

“Yeah, yeah I guess it does.” Keith offered him a small sweet smile that was very uncharacteristic of him. Lance’s heart stuttered in his chest.

 

Keith opened his mouth to say something else but the only sound that came out was a gasp. Lance straightened up, for a moment he had no idea what had happened. That only lasted a second though and once he realized what had happened he’d wished he could go back to the seconds earlier when he hadn’t.

 

Lance watched in shock as Keith fell sideways a knife impaled in the small of his back. Lance cried out.

 

“No!” He screamed the words ripping themselves from his mouth in a guttural scream.

 

Prince Nori stood over Keith’s body grinning despite the blood covering his body. “I’m only helping you pay the cost. I know Voltron will never have the guts.” He said panting

 

All Lance could think was that Keith was dying if not already dead and that it was the prince’s fault. He couldn’t even process Nori’s words,

 

With a scream of pure anger, Lance lunged forward. Afterward, Lance couldn’t remember how it had happened but somehow his Bayard had magically appeared in his hands and he brought his broad sword into Prince Nori’s chest. Nori might have screamed as he died if he did Lance didn’t hear it. The light had barely left his eyes and Lance was turning back to Keith his sword transforming back into its Bayard form and clattering to the ground.

 

“Keith, Keith,” Lance whispered like a prayer.

 

When Keith took a rattling breath Lance started to cry.

 

“Lance,” he whispered weakly.

 

“Hey, Red. Don’t worry everything’s going to be fine. I’ve got you.”

 

“I-I need… I need to tell you something.” Keith whispered his voice ragged.

 

“No, shhh sweetheart. You’ll tell me later okay? Save your breath.”

 

“I can’t die- I can’t without telling you.”

 

“And you won’t, because you’re not going to die today. I’m going to get you home and if you tell me now you’ll be wasting it because you’re not dying now, do you hear me?”

 

Keith had the nerve to chuckle weakly “loud ‘n clear.” He mumbled.

 

Getting Keith back to the Atlas was all a blur to Lance. He wasn’t sure how he managed to get them both back to the black lion or how he even flew Black, but somehow he did. He stumbled out of the lion into the hangar with a half-dead Keith in his arms.

 

When Coran tried to take him from Lance he was in such a state that he almost didn’t let him before Coran assured him that they were taking Keith to be healed.

 

Lance himself, however, refused a healing pod. He missed his team’s faces of distress when he told them that he wasn’t going in a healing pod. Allura was completely at loss for what to do. Eventually, they realized that Lance wasn’t going to change his mind and they couldn’t make him so they settled for forcing him on bed rest after his wounds were stitched up and bandaged.

 

Confined to his bed Lance didn’t do a whole lot of resting. Instead, he spent his time writing in his plant book which very quickly became a whole lot more than plants. In his time agonizing over whether Keith was okay, Lance became erratic and _obsessed_.

 

He replayed what Prince Nori had said over and over again in his head.

 

Victory required a cost.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited for you guys to read the next chapter. I love it so much! 
> 
> But I'm withholding it for a few days because I'm updating too fast, sorry.
> 
> (Catch me forgetting to name my chapter every single time, whoops.)


	12. Sacrifices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the excessive commas, there are commas everywhere. I just can't stop using them.  
> It a bad habit from the fact that I never used to use comma right so now I overcompensate. Whoops. 
> 
> But anyway, this is my favorite chapter I've written for this fic so I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

 

When Lance was finally allowed off bed rest he spent his days wandering the Atlas halls like a ghost. His teammates had tried to get through to him but nothing worked. He wouldn’t talk about what had happened down on Thundeg besides the initial debriefing he suffered through.

 

If he wasn’t pacing the halls he was in the med pay in front of Keith’s pod. It had been almost two weeks now and he showed no signs of waking. Coran said it was only a matter of time though.

 

They were _lucky_ Lance had been told, if it had been a mission a week earlier that Voltron had undertaken on their own without the Atlas then they wouldn’t have had the resources to heal Keith.

 

Lance didn’t even want to think about that.

 

Instead, he focused on something else. He’d had a bit of a breakthrough, he just needed confirmation on whether or not it would work.

 

He rapped softly on the door frame of the tech room where Pidge spent most of her time.

 

She looked up surprised to see him. “Hey,” she greeted.

 

“Hey, do you have a moment? I wanted to ask you about something.”

 

“Sure,” she said as he stepped into the room “what’s up?”

 

“Well,” he cleared his throat shifting nervously “I had a theory that I wanted to run by you.”

 

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, “Okay?”

 

Lance took a deep breath “The prince down on Thundeg, he said something to me that made me think. He said that there a balance to the universe, that victory requires… _a cost_.”

 

“A cost?” she repeated.

 

“Yeah,” Lance nodded “do you think there could be any truth to that. Like scientifically?”

 

“Well,” she said thinking “possibly. I mean it’s definitely all theoretical. But if you think about the intelligent design theory it kind of makes sense, that the universe was designed purposefully and it’s too complex to not have been created by an intelligent being. But that’s where things start crossing the line from science into more of a spiritual, magic guessing game.”

 

“But there is truth in the whole _magic_ thing, right? Maybe things were different on Earth but now we know that it is fact, with Voltron and y’know sentient lion space ships. Also everything with Altean alchemy.”

 

“Yes, that’s right.” Pidge agreed.

 

“So thinking of it in those terms… what do you think?”

 

“I couldn’t say for sure… but evaluating the evidence and facts, I’d say it’s very likely that the Thundegianian prince was right.”

 

Lance took a deep breath “Okay, so saying he was right, then if we paid the cost then we could win the war, save the universe?”

 

She frowned not liking where this was going “What is the cost?”

 

Lance didn’t answer his gaze turning to the floor.

 

Pidge straightened up Lance’s reaction clearly setting off alarm bells “Lance,” She said warningly “What is it?”

 

When he met her gaze his eyes were glassy but still he didn’t respond.

 

“Lance!” She said grabbing his wrist.

 

“I might be wrong.” He whispered.

 

“Well, what do you think it is?”

 

He took a deep breath steeling himself “Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe. I think the only reason we haven’t been able to win already is because the Galra have been _paying_ their price. They lost Zarkon, Lotor, and then Sendak. To have victory they need balance to appease the universe. So to keep their overall power they’ve let themselves lose their most powerful. Because you can’t both control the universe and wield the most powerful weapons or beings of the universe.” 

 

“Please don’t tell me you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” Pidge whispered horrified.

 

“I’m sorry.” Lance said sadly “but I think that if we want to win… one of us has to die.”

 

“No!” pidge said “No that’s not going to happen! That can’t be it.”

 

“Think about it Pidge,” Lance pleaded “Voltron can’t be destroyed, but as long as we have it we can’t have victory. Hiding it away wouldn’t work, we can’t just give up Voltron. As long as we the Paladins are alive, Voltron is alive. So if one of the Paladins dies then Voltron would be incapacitated.”

 

“But we’ve been through this already! We’ve lost paladins before, with Shiro. Other people can step in and take up lions.”

 

“But I don’t think they can. Shiro was never really meant to be the black paladin, not permanently. It was always supposed to wind up with Keith in Black, me in Red, Allura in Blue and you and Hunk in Green and Yellow.  Things worked out exactly how they were supposed to. We are the paladins of the lions we have right now and that was meant to be. That was permanent. If we lost a paladin now, we’d lose Voltron too.”

 

“And what then?” Pidge spat out “One of us dies and we save the universe? You’re okay with that?”

 

“Of course not!” Lance said. It was then that he realized he couldn’t tell her the truth “I won’t let that happen.” He lied “I think I have a way to win without one of us dying.”

 

“How?” Pidge demanded.

 

“I can’t tell you. I talked to Slav about it. I couldn’t get him to confirm my theory because he’s difficult like that and wouldn’t tell me “but he hinted at how to stop it. Now that I know thanks to you I can get him to actually help me.”

 

The truth was Slav had said no such thing. In fact, he refused to answer any of Lance’s questions because he said if he did then there was a ninety-nine percent chance that it would end badly in every reality and Slav being involved in it would ruin everything. Lance wasn’t sure what to make of that honestly. It scared him.

 

Pidge sighed seemingly accepting Lance’s lie “You’re sure you can prevent it?” She asked in a small voice.

 

“I’m certain of it.”

 

He was lying through his fucking teeth and he hated it. But he had to.

 

Pidge paused for a second before pulling him into a tight hug. “Okay, be careful please.”

 

“You know me,” he joked “I’m always careful.”

 

 

\--

 

It was a few days later when Keith woke up. Lance was alerted to this by Hunk running down the hall to him screaming:

 

“Keith’s awake! He’s awake!”

 

Lance was with him in an instant, booking it to the med bay.

 

When they got there Keith was sitting on an examination table in the skintight healing pod suit rubbing his eyes blearily. Shiro, Allura, and Coran were already there fussing over him like mother hens.

 

As Hunk rushed over to them Lance stayed back a minute looking Keith over, besides looking a little out of it from being in a healing pod for almost three weeks Keith seemed otherwise fine.

 

Keith looked up noticing Lance approaching “Lance,” He said his voice rough from lack of use.

 

“Hey,” Lance said softly.

 

“You’re okay,” Keith said in relief.

 

Lance raised an eyebrow “Says you.”

 

Keith just shrugged “You were hurt too.” His brow furrowed his gaze darting down to Lance’s leg as he took a few steps closer “You’re still hurt.” He said confused by Lance’s slight limp.

 

“Nah, just a little bit sore still.”

 

“Didn’t you go into a healing pod?”

 

Lance shrugged “I’m fine.” He replied, but it wasn’t really an answer. Keith frowned and Lance was sure he was going to press on but thankfully Pidge chose that moment to come bounding into the room.

 

“Keith!” She said rushing over to him and hugging him tightly.

 

Keith shot Lance another glance that clearly meant that he intended to continue the conversation later but then turned to Pidge.

 

Lance watched Keith interact and talk with his team. He let himself enjoy being with Keith for a few minutes before turning and quietly slipping away, he had work to do.

 

He missed the way Keith's eyes followed him out.

 

\--

 

Two weeks later they were on the planet Afortide. They’d saved them from being taken over from the Galra and to show their gratitude they inhabitants of the planet had invited them to stay for their Purple Moon Gala which apparently only happened every hundred years and was a very big deal.

 

It was nice and Afortide was a beautiful planet. In the past, Lance was sure he would have enjoyed the party immensely. Any chance to show off his gorgeous girlfriend was something Lance usually jumped at, but tonight he wasn’t feeling it.

 

He and Allura had got into a fight because she noticed he’d been acting different and got upset when he refused to tell her why. Afterward, Lance had slinked off to an empty room to be alone.

 

Well, he was certainly alone, but the truth was lately, Lance felt alone even when he was surrounded by his teammates. He was carrying a huge burden but he knew he couldn’t tell anyone. _He_ needed to figure out how to deal with it.

 

Footsteps startled Lance out of his thoughts and he turned surprised to find Keith behind him.

 

“Mind if I join you?” Keith asked timidly in a very un-Keith-like manner.

 

“Not at all,” Lance said. He scooted over on the bench he was sitting on so Keith could take the spot beside him. As Keith sat down Lance had to resist the urge to shiver at their closeness.

 

“Nice view you found here,” Keith said gesturing to the window which overlooked the magical gardens below with the full purple moon shining down on it.

 

“Yeah, it’s pretty here.”

 

Keith hummed in agreement “Uh, speaking of pretty, I found something I thought you’d like.” He said.

 

Lance raised an eyebrow a little confused “What?” he asked.

 

“Um,” He cleared his throat “This.” He handed Lance a flower.

 

It was probably the most beautiful thing Lance had ever seen with the petals the deepest red he’d ever seen and a blue stem. The leaves on it were blue where they grew off the stem but turned purple at the tips.

 

“I saw it and thought you’d appreciate it since you y’know, you like plants and stuff… the gardener said that they only bloom on the purple moon every hundred years, so this is the only chance we’ll ever have to get one...” he trailed off.

 

Lance didn’t say anything transfixed by the flower he held so delicately in his hands.

 

When Lance didn’t speak Keith’s expression fell “Sorry,” he said suddenly “It’s okay if you don’t like it, I just thought it’d be a cool addition to your book so—“

 

“No,” Lance said cutting him off “I- I really love it, thank you.” He whispered the last part softly.

 

A small smile made his way onto Keith’s face “Oh, okay. You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it.”

 

“I love it,” Lance whispered.

 

Somehow during their exchange, they’d gotten closer and as Lance looked up from the flower to meet Keith’s gaze his breath caught in his throat as he found himself inches from Keith. They were so close Lance could have kissed Keith. Apparently the same thought must have crossed Keith's mind because in the heat of the moment Keith leaned forward and pressed his lips to Lance’s.

 

For a moment Lance froze for a split second before instincts kicked and he kissed him back.

 

Keith kissed Lance hungrily and passionately, he put his entire soul into it just like he did with everything else he did. Lance’s hands found their way into Keith’s hair and Keith’s hands were on Lance’s waist.

 

He’d kissed a lot of people but he’d never felt anything like this.

 

The sheer intensity, the fire which burned in his chest making him want more and more and more. Made him want to stay here forever with Keith’s hands and lips on him.

 

But eventually Keith’s brain seemed to catch up with him and he pulled away gasping. The stayed frozen for a moment breath mingling before Keith quickly jerked back.

 

“Oh my god,” Keith said his eyes wide and panicked “Oh my god, I’m sorry. You’re dating Allura I shouldn’t have done that.”

 

Lance didn’t respond, he was too busy trying to process the revelation that had just hit him like a freight train.

 

He was in love with Keith. All this time, he’d been in love with Keith.

 

“Lance,” Keith said his voice rough and shaking, pleading with him to say something.

 

Lance knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Keith that he was in love with him, that he didn’t really love Allura anymore. He wanted to say that he hadn’t realized it until just now but that he was going to break things off with her.

 

But as much as he wanted to say that, he knew he couldn’t. Sacrifices needed to be made, one of them had to die. He’d decided it. And in the moment he vowed that he wouldn’t let it be Keith. there was no going back. He couldn’t tell Keith he loved him when Lance was basically a dead man walking, that wasn’t fair. It was better that Keith think his feelings were unrequited then have a relationship with someone who was going to die.

 

“This was a mistake.” It killed him to say it but he kept his voice steady even as Keith flinched pain written across his face. “I’m sorry Keith, I don’t feel that way about you.”

 

“Of course.” Keith said his voiced choked “Right. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

 

Keith quickly fled the room with tears in his eyes and Lance let him go.

 

Once Keith was gone Lance let the tears spill down his cheeks.

 

It was for the best, he told himself.

 

_It was for the best._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now I'm only one chapter ahead of what I'm posting so updates might be coming out a little slower then they have been this month.
> 
> I've been working on chapter 13 for the past few days and it's been being a lil bitch.  
> Buuut I'm almost done with it so I'm almost out of the woods.


	13. Truth

Lance’s eyes opened as suddenly as they had descended into this mess just minutes before.

 

Keith rushed over to him but Lance was already standing on his own, his eyes were clear again and his gaze sharp and alert.

 

When his eyes met Keith’s there was something behind them that hadn’t been there before.

 

“What was it?” Keith asked.

 

Lance's gaze darted to Pidge, Shiro and then back to Keith again.

 

“Nothing,” Lance said.

 

His voice was calm and calculated, it sent a shiver down Keith’s spine. It had been a long time since he’d heard Lance speak like that, so level and calm. It was so unlike Lance that Keith still remembered the first time he’d heard Lance talk like that.

 

_“I don’t feel that way about you.”_

Lance was never steady, he was up and down, enthusiastic and alive. But when he’d said it Lance has sounded so measured and careful that it had stuck in Keith’s brain even now.

 

“Nothing?” Keith asked not believing him. “Clearly you remembered something.”

 

“It’s nothing that you need to know now,” Lance said flatly.

 

Keith opened his mouth to say something but Pidge cut in “Don’t pry Keith.” She warned.

 

Keith wanted to argue but instead, he nodded giving up for the time being.

 

Pidge and Lance exchanged a look and she said to him: “By the way, I’m still going to kick your ass for lying to me.”

 

His expression turned from blank to sad suddenly “I had to,”

 

“And are you ever going to tell me what really happened?”

 

Lance shrugged “I’ll probably have to, eventually.”

 

“Okay,” Shiro cut in “I’m just going to say it because no one else is. What the hell is going on?” He asked sharply.

 

Keith and Pidge froze like deer in the headlights but Lance spoke up.

 

“I remember,” Lance said to Shiro.

 

Shiro’s forehead wrinkled and his mouth fell open in confusion. “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean I remember that you were the black paladin originally. You went missing or something, um I’m not clear on the details of that, but Keith took up your position as black paladin and you became captain of the Atlas at some point. You still acted like our leader though, or like our dad I guess?” He shrugged “I remember that Hunk was my best friend, we were cadets sat the Garrison together. He taught me how to make waffles.”

 

Hunk smiled at that, there were tears in his eyes.

 

“I remember that Pidge has always been wicked smart, I’ve always trusted her.” Lance turned to Pidge his gaze softening “And I understand if you’re mad at me, for lying to you. I said I had another way but I never did, that was my plan all along. But it wasn’t your fault. “  

 

She nodded teary-eyed, the exchanged looks for a moment having a silent conversation before Lance continued.

 

“I remember Keith, I remember that I hated him at first, but somehow we eventually became friends. I remember everything that happened on Thundeg,” Keith grimaced at that “I remember Voltron, being the red paladin and I know that I was the blue paladin at first though I can’t actually remember that.”

 

“But how?” Shiro asked incredulously.

 

Lance shrugged “My memory just started coming back.” He said thankfully not throwing Keith under the bus.

 

Hunk shook his head still in a bit of shock “How long ago did they start coming back?”

 

“Well, in a way it started when I first bumped into Shiro, Keith and Curtis at Veronica’s I got the first tiny bit of a memory. It wasn’t much, just a feeling really. But after that more and more started to come back.”

 

“But you still don’t remember everything?”

 

“No, there’s a lot I still don’t remember, but I think it’s going to come back eventually.”

                                                                                

“Everything?” Shiro asked in an uncharacteristically small voice.

 

“I mean probably? I guess there’s no way to know, I’m no expert on memory loss or anything. But I’d hope so.”

 

“Oh god,” said rubbing the bridge of his nose, “we’re going to get in so much trouble.”

 

“Why?” Lance asked.

 

“When you lost your memory the Garrison thought it was for the best that you did. It spared you from… unnecessary _trauma_.” Shiro said carefully “In the end, your family agreed and we were ordered to stay away from you.”

 

Lance flinched in surprise “My family? They kept me from getting my memories back?”

 

“They were just doing what they thought was right for you,” Shiro said gently.

 

“But all those years? They just let me suffer not even knowing who I was?”

 

“Yes.” Keith said cutting “They did, and that’s on them. But the Garrison convinced them, and the Garrison is very powerful and very hard to say no to. Your family tried to at first but the Garrison pressured them. Trust me, they didn’t enjoy lying to you.”

 

Lance nodded still looking angry but much less so now “What do you mean the Garrison pressured them? Why would they want me to forget?”

 

“I don’t know…” Keith said biting his lip “I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, but all the explanations I’ve come up with seem insane.”

 

 “But then again everyone thought you were insane when you said that Shiro was still alive after the Kerberos mission, but you were right.” Hunk pointed out.

 

 

“Yes, but…” Keith trailed off.

 

“What?” Lance asked.

 

He took a deep breath “Look, if the Garrison didn’t want you to ever get your memories back then it’s probably because you knew something they didn’t want you to.”

 

Lance’s brow furrowed in confusion “That doesn’t make sense, I can’t think of why they would want me to forget everything. But I guess, I still don’t remember a lot.”  

 

“Those last two months a lot happened,” Pidge murmured “Do you think it could be about _that thing_.”

 

Lance snorted “Maybe? But that doesn’t really make sense to me. You knew about it too.”

 

 “They questioned all of us,” Pidge said thoughtfully “I obviously didn’t mention it to them. I don’t think that’s information the Garrison needs in their hands.”

 

“You don’t trust them?” Lance asked.

 

“No, I don’t. But I never really have. When the Kerberos mission went wrong no one would tell me anything, I had to sneak into the Garrison by pretending to be a boy to try to find Matt and my dad. So I’ve never exactly had the best relationship with the Garrison.”

 

“But they’re different now,” Shiro cut in angrily “The Garrison isn’t the same as they used to be. There’s an entire new chain of command.”

 

“You don’t know they’re different for sure, there’s always a lot that goes on behind the scenes.” Hunk said kindly.

 

Shiro’s anger faded a little at Hunk’s sweet demeanor but still, he shook his head “The Garrison was only doing what was best. They thought it’d be beneficial for Lance’s mental health and clearly their intentions were good because Lance’s family agreed. Maybe they were hesitant at first but we all were, and we all accepted it.” He glared at Keith and then turned to Lance “Their intentions were good, even if you’re mad about losing your memories that’s the truth. It would have taken a lot of time and resources to devote to recovering your memories, it would have been hard on you, and hard on your family. And who knows if it even would have even been possible to fix your memory back then? You were better off not even knowing what you were missing.”

 

Lance’s eyes narrowed in a rare sign of pure anger and Keith stiffened behind him “You have no idea the things I know Shiro, so don’t you fucking tell me that I would be better off not knowing.” He said in a quiet dangerous voice.

 

Shiro was suddenly struck by the similarities between Lance and Keith. He’d heard that type of anger on more than one occasion, fiery, dangerous, and careful like the calm before the storm when you know something deadly is coming. There was a reason they had both held the spot of Red Paladin.

 

Shiro did the smart thing and averted his eyes, it was an instinctive sign of submission. He knew he couldn’t fight Lance on this and that it wasn’t wise, so he let it go.

 

Lance clearly still pissed turned and walked out of the room. There was a moment of silence before the front door was opened and then slammed shut.

 

“Great job Shiro,” Pidge scoffed “We just got Lance back and you’re already driving him away.”

 

“He shouldn’t even have been here in the first place,” Shiro said crossing his arms defensively.

 

“Takashi,” Curtis said stepping into the conversation for the first time “You invited him. You need to be open-minded, even I know that the Garrison isn’t always right, they could have made a mistake with Lance.”

 

Shiro remained stiff for a moment longer before the tension drained out of his shoulders and he slumped down in defeat. “I know, I know.” He whispered.

 

Curtis stepped forward and whispered something in Shiro’s ear and Shiro nodded numbly.

 

Keith caught Pidge and Hunk’s eyes and motioned for them to follow him, this was clearly a conversation just for Shiro and Curtis. They left the living room and moved into the foyer.

 

Peering outside Keith could see Lance standing in the driveway leaning against the car. He looked like his mind was very, very, far away as he looked up at the stars.

 

“I should go,” Keith murmured watching him.

 

His friends followed his gaze to where Lance was standing.

 

“I can’t believe he’s here,” Hunk whispered, “I never thought I’d see him again, and I _really_ never thought he’d remember me.”

 

“Yeah,” Pidge said her voice suddenly thick with emotion, “I thought he was lost too. But he’s here now and if there’s one thing I know it’s that I’m never letting him go again.”

 

"Me too,” Keith said softly.

 

Hunk turned to look at Keith “Hey, are you alright, with everything that’s happening?” he asked compassionately.

 

“Of course,” Keith said roughly “why wouldn’t I be?” 

 

Hunk had known Keith long enough not to be put off by his prickliness “Because I know you loved Lance, or you still do.”

 

Keith stiffened he looked like he might yell for a moment before but instead he deflated letting go of the anger “Didn’t matter then, doesn’t matter now. Unless you’re like Shiro and think that I’m going to use Lance’s memory loss to manipulate him into loving me.”

 

“What?” Hunk asked in surprise “He said that?”

 

“Yeah, he apologized but…” Keith shrugged “for some reason he’s always just hated the fact that I loved Lance.”

 

Hunk shook his head sadly “I don’t think that he hates you loving Lance, I think he hates that Lance never loved you back. Shiro cares about you so much, I know he doesn’t like to see you hurting. And yeah, he doesn’t show it in the best way, but he means well.”

 

"I know, I know." Keith sighed “But that doesn’t make it okay, just because his intentions are good.”

 

He turned his back from his friends to watch Lance who had at some point in the last few minutes had lit a cigarette and was smoking in the cool evening air. 

 

“I should go,” Keith muttered more to himself than to Pidge and Hunk.

 

Hunk’s cast a wistful look over at Lance, he clearly wanted a chance to talk to his best friend. But instead, he said “Go, I think he needs you.”

 

Keith nodded “Okay, you guys can come by my place tomorrow, see Lance.” He said.

 

“Oh gosh,” Hunk said happily “I’d love that.”

 

“Me too,” Pidge said with a faint smile.

 

“Okay, I’ll see you then.”

 

“Yeah,” Pidge nodded and Keith gave them both quick hugs before slipping out the door and heading towards Lance.

 

\--

 

Lance was having a rough time processing. He’d remembered a lot very quickly and now his mind was trying to fill in the gaps between who he’d thought he was and who he now remembered being.

 

He looked up as he heard footsteps crunching in the gravel. As Keith approached Lance was hit by sudden déjà vu of when Keith first approached Lance at Veronica’s.

 

But this time as Lance watched Keith he wasn’t looking at a stranger but the man he loved, because if there was one thing Lance knew for certain it was that he loved Keith. He’d known that even before he remembered it.

 

“You shouldn’t smoke,” Keith said in a way that felt familiar to Lance “you’ll get lung cancer.”

 

“Lung cancer is the least of my worries.” Lance shrugged.

 

Keith’s expression turned to a sad wistful look “That’s what you always used to say. I didn’t know you still smoked. Being in a coma should have cured you of that addiction.”

 

“I didn’t realize I smoked before,” Lance shrugged “I just kind of started some years ago, made me feel better.”

 

“There are other ways to feel better.”

 

“Yeah,” Lance said looking up at Keith who was framed by the Texas sky the slight breeze blowing his hair from his face “but I hadn’t found them yet.”

 

\--

 

Lance woke in the middle of the night gasping. He’d taken up permanent residence on Keith’s couch, checked out of his hotel room and brought all his stuff to Keith’s place, there was no point wasting money when he was always with Keith anyway.

 

He swung himself off the couch and walked to the kitchen hands shaking. It was just a nightmare, it wasn’t real.

 

He grabbed himself a glass of water and leaned against the counter closing his eyes in an attempt to steady himself only to have them shoot open seconds later when he was so sure he heard something in the kitchen with him.

But as his gaze darted around the kitchen and his heart pounded in his chest it was clear there was nothing there.

 

Finishing his water he put the glass in the sink and headed back to the couch. He laid down and tried to fall asleep but every time Lance’s eyes started to close he panicked and opened them again in terror. He lay there for two hours in a state of distress and paranoia until eventually with tears of frustration running down his face he pushed himself off the couch and made his way down the hall to Keith’s room.  

 

As Lance pushed the door open Keith shifted sitting up, apparently, he was a very light sleeper.

 

“Lance,” he said into the dark his voice heavy with sleep. “Are you okay?”

 

“No,” Lance whispered pitifully.

 

There was a moment of silence before Keith said “C’mere.”

 

Lance barely hesitated walking over and sitting down on the side of the bed.

 

Keith blinked in the dark studying Lance “Nightmares?” he asked.

 

Lance nodded wiping a stray tear from his face.

 

“You can stay in here, if you’d like,” Keith said softly.

 

Lance took a moment to respond and Keith shifted at his silence, but eventually, he said: “Okay.”

 

Keith nodded and pulled an extra pillow over for Lance from where usually threw it before he went to bed.

 

Lance accepted the pillow and burrowed under the blanket drawn in by Keith’s warmth. Keith laid back down and rolled over with a yawn. Lance hesitated for a moment before moving closer to Keith timidly.

 

Sensing Lance Keith stilled and turned to face him, he shot Lance a small sleepy smile in the dark and something warm and golden burned in Lance’s chest. Feeling more at ease he shifted closer to Keith until he was close enough to bury his face in Keith’s chest.

 

Keith hesitated for a moment unsurely before tentatively wrapping his arms around Lance and pulling him closer until they were wrapped up in each other.

 

“ _I lied_ ,” Lance whispered into Keith’s chest.

 

“Hm?” Keith asked.

 

“On Afortide I told you that I didn’t feel that way about you and I lied.”  He whispered it all tumbling out in a rush.

 

“What?” Keith asked suddenly very much awake.

 

“I did love you,” Lance said quietly “And I do.” He started to sob and Keith’s instinct to question Lance was won out by his need to soothe him.

 

Keith held him tight whispering in his ear

 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re going to be okay Lance.”

 

And maybe Lance actually believed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's POV is this chapter in?  
> I honestly don't know.
> 
> but i hope you liked it I guess.


	14. Orbit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! If you see any symbols like this: (++) in the chapters please let me know! That's just what I'm using to mark what I wrote in one day for Nanowrimo and if they're in there it's because I missed it while editing! So tell me if you see one and I'll take it out.

Keith woke lazily squinting in the sunlight that was coming through his curtains. Even before he was fully awake he knew something was different because he never woke with the sun in his face. Keith was always up before the sun when the sky was still tainted dark from the night and light was just creeping up the horizon.

 

He blinked his consciousness coming back fully and he registered the body beside him. Lance was asleep breathing deeply tucked into Keith’s side. He looked so small and it hit a chord somewhere deep inside Keith. For most of the time that he knew Lance Keith was used to him being tall and loud and obnoxious, Keith still forgot a lot that he was taller than Lance now so looking at him when he seemed so small and the waver of his voice last night, it scared Keith.

 

He kept that to himself though as Lance shifted beside Keith and his clear blue eyes opened sleepily. He blinked a few times looking up at Keith.

 

“Good morning,” He said his voice rough with sleep.

 

“Hey,” Keith said with a faint smile.

 

“Sorry for crashing in here last night,” Lance said rubbing the back of his neck.

 

“Nah, I offered. I know how nightmares go,” Keith shrugged “Being alone always makes them ten times worse.”

 

“Yeah,” Lance frowned “Normally I can never sleep after a nightmare, usually whenever I have one I eventually just have to accept that I won’t be sleeping that night.”

 

A sad look crossed Keith’s face “You have them a lot?”

 

“Not as much as I used to, the first six months after I woke up from the coma I would have them almost every night, but they’re a lot less frequent.”

 

“Are- are they about your past? Like your memories?”

 

“I have no idea what they’re about honestly. They’re never exactly the same, usually it’s something that’s mundane but that makes me feel anxious, I dream of big crowds a lot, like in shopping malls, concerts, amusement parks, everything is always really normal except me. I’m freaked out even though there’s nothing wrong. Then everything kind of… blows up.”

 

“Blows up?”

 

“Yeah, wherever I am, just goes up in flames, there’s ash everywhere, people are dying all around me. And there’s always somebody calling my name and I can’t see them or tell who they are but I know that they’re important and that I need to get to them, but I’m never able to reach them. They always just _slip_ out of my grasp. Then I’m burning and I just… wake up.”

 

“They’re always like that?”

 

“Yeah,” Lance nodded.

 

Keith reached out and took Lance’s hand gently, there was no need for words.

 

Lance looked up and their eyes met sending an electric shock down Keith’s spine.

 

“Um,” Lance said tucking his feet underneath himself “about what I said last night—“

 

“It’s fine.” Keith said quickly “I know you were shaken up from a nightmare, people say a lot of things they don’t mean when it’s that late. You were probably just a little delirious.”

 

“No!” Lance said sharply “I wasn’t delirious. I meant it, I did lie.”

 

Keith shook his head backing away from Lance “No, no. Why would you lie to me then? Why tell me you didn’t have feelings for me? You--“ his voice cracked “you broke my heart, Lance.” He said quietly.

 

“I know, and I’m sorry but—“

 

“No, no.” Keith said standing up and walking over to his dresser “I can’t, I just…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose trying to swallow away the choked feeling in his throat “I’m going for a run.” He said finally pulling out a tank top and a pair of shorts before exiting the room and shutting the door behind him with a final thud.

 

\--

 

Lance was frozen blinking at the door that Keith had just disappeared through. He’d fucked up, he knew it.

 

He wasn’t sure how he could justify what he’d done to Keith. Remembering and understanding were two different things. He _remembered_ shutting Keith down, he remembered his motive for doing so, he even understood it, but he couldn’t imagine how he’d done it. Lance wasn’t sure he could even survive living at this point without Keith being this close, much less lying to him about how he felt. Lance was a different person than he’d been a week ago, and he was so, so, different from who he’d been all those years ago.

 

Lance knew that Keith had no reason to forgive him and no reason to listen to a single thing Lance said. But he just hoped that once Keith cooled down that maybe he would.

 

Lance wasn’t sure what he’d do if he didn’t.

 

\--

 

 

It was two hours later when Keith arrived home. When he stepped into his apartment everything was quiet. He paused in the doorway listening for any movement but there was nothing.

 

“Lance,” Keith called.

 

There was no answer.

 

“Lance!” Keith called more urgently.

 

Keith’s heart dropped when he was met only by silence.

 

He dropped his keys on the counter and started a check of his apartment, his heart sunk farther and farther with every empty room.

 

Had Lance left? Had he ever been here in the first place? Was it finally happening and Keith had lost his mind?

 

As Keith opened the door to his small office he let out a small sob of relief. Lance was sprawled out on the floor with a pen and paper from Keith’s printer, he had headphones on and was bobbing his head to whatever song he was listening to with his tongue between as he scribbled intently.

 

“Lance,” Keith said breathlessly. 

 

Lance jumped in surprise and scrambled up pulling off the headphones. He took in Keith’s shallow breathing and glassy eyes frowning in concern.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Keith didn’t even bother responding instead he stepped forward and pulled Lance into a fierce hug. Lance hesitated for a moment confused before wrapping his arms around Keith and holding him tightly.

 

“Hey, hey,” he whispered softly into Keith’s hair “what happened?”

 

“I thought- I… Keith took a shuddery breath “I didn’t hear you, thought you might have left. Thought maybe you were in my head.”

 

“No, no.” Lance said pulling back and cupping Keith’s face gently in his hands “I’m here, I’m real. I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to.”

 

“I don’t.” Keith whispered “I never want to let you out of my sight again. I’m sorry for storming out.”

 

“It’s okay,” Lance said “I understand, you were upset and rightfully so. I lied to you, I hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

 

“But why?” Keith asked, “Why lie about it?”

 

“Honestly?” Lance said “it’s hard for me to explain, I still feel very disconnected from the past me I guess. But I think I was scared, I knew things that no one else did, I knew how the war was going to end.”

 

“ _How_?” Keith pleaded.

 

“I--“ Lance sighed “I’m sorry, I’m not ready to tell you that. I think I need to remember a little more before I can.”

 

Keith nodded “I understand,”

 

“Thank you,” Lance said with a faint smile “I know this is hard for you too.”

 

Keith sighed his shoulders slumping a little “It is,” he shrugged “It’s hard for me to talk about my feelings,” Keith admitted, “So I’m sorry for leaving.”

 

“It’s okay really,” Lance said stepping a little closer.

 

They were close now, so close that Keith’s breath caught in his breath from the proximity. “You said you loved me last night,” Keith whispered barely daring to breathe.

 

“Hm,” Lance said cocking his head and raising an eyebrow “I guess I did.”

 

“You really meant it?”

 

“Absolutely, one-hundred percent.”

 

Even though Keith kind of knew that Lance was probably going to say that after what he’d said this morning it still hit Keith like a ton of bricks. Lance loved him, Keith could barely even process it.

 

“Stop me if this isn’t okay,” Lance said breathlessly.

 

Before the words could make it through Keith’s shocked brain Lance was closing the distance between them. Even though Keith was so dazed he didn’t hesitate to kiss back, at the first gentle press of Lance’s lips Keith’s hands were pulling Lance in by the collar, Lance walked them backward until Keith’s back hit the wall.

 

Keith most definitely did not stop him.

 

They broke apart, both gasping, still so close that if Keith leaned forward even an inch they’d be kissing again. So after a shared moment of awed silence that’s exactly what Keith did, grabbing Lance and pulling him back in. Lance did so willingly matching Keith’s enthusiasm.

 

The kiss burned into something passionate and heavy, the soft press of Lance’s lips became more urgent and Keith’s hands tangled in Lance’s hair while his hands held Keith in place by the waist.

 

Not that he needed to be, Keith wasn’t going anywhere. Shiro had been right all those years ago when he’d told Keith that he was stuck in Lance’s orbit.

 

Except Shiro had said it like it was a bad thing, but it didn’t feel like a bad thing.

 

Not with Lance at his fingertips, the smell of his skin. Keith would be happy to stay like that forever, trapped in Lance’s orbit till the end of time.

 

No, this wasn’t a bad thing at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klance??
> 
> Oh also great news: this fic is officially longer than my only completed fic which took me like 10 months to write 30,000 words but I'm already 31,000 words into this fic and this one had only taken 8 months (lol). If all keeps going well we are definitely going to end up with this being a 50,000 word fic, so prepare because we have a bumpy ride ahead of us.


	15. Heathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "really I think this fic is going to be shorter overall. My other stories I'm aiming for like twenty(ish) chapters, I think this one will probably be closer to ten." -me in the notes of the 2nd chapter of this fic.
> 
> yeah, so that ain't happening in any way shape or form... but it was a cute thought, really.
> 
> BUT HEY, welcome to chapter fifteen folks

 

“So,” Lance shifted “what does this mean? For you and me?”

 

Keith was wrapped in Lance’s arms their clothes had been discarded on the floor of Keith’s bedroom sometime earlier and now they lay in his bed basking in the afterglow.

 

Lance felt the most satisfied and at ease in his skin than he could ever remember feeling.

 

“What do you want it to mean?” Keith asked looking up at Lance unsurely “What do you want?”

 

“You,” Lance said simply.

 

Keith blinked at Lance through his lashes “Lance,” he whispered breathlessly “you’ve got me. You always have, from the day you called me a dropout and I decided I hated your guts.”

 

Lance chuckled lowly “I remember that.” He swung his body over Keith’s so he was hovering over him, pinning Keith’s hands beside his head.

 

Keith was happy to give up control to Lance. To let him lead them where he wanted.

 

It wasn’t lost on Lance just what this meant. Keith, the hotheaded leader, and extreme passenger seat driver was letting Lance have control, Keith trusted Lance to keep them comfortable and safe. It was a kind of trust that made Lance's chest fill with warmth and absolute love for the black paladin. 

 

Lance was so overwhelmed by feelings he couldn’t put into words so he leaned down pressing a kiss to Keith’s forehead, then his cheek following his scar down to his jaw. Keith shivered as he took note of Lance's lips on that terrible scar.

 

Keith was never very concerned by his appearance, Lance had always bugged him about washing his face more often, and taking better care of his hair. So when Keith had got the scar he hadn’t expected to feel so bad about it. But the first time Keith looked in the mirror after he’d first been burned he’d cried. He hated it. The scar was a reminder of Keith’s failures, of how he abandoned his team to suffer without him.

 

But he did remember one time while they were back on Earth with the Garrison Lance had come into collect Keith for a meeting while he’d been fussing over it in the mirror with a pained look.

 

_“I think it’s badass.”_

_“What?”_ Keith had asked.

 

_“Your scar, I know you don’t like it but I think it makes you look badass, it shows how strong you are. Like you got all burned and you survived. Y'know?”_

Now Keith was feeling the same feeling he’d felt then amplified ten times. He rarely felt this warm and soft and _loved_. But as Lance kissed Keith’s neck he felt at home. Also, like he was being lit on fire because as Keith was quickly learning, Lance's touches affected Keith like nothing ever had. Keith had gone on some (admittedly bad) dates, kissed people, even slept with a few guys, but none of it compared to this.

 

Lance paused on his journey down Keith’s body to go back up to kiss him on the lips softly.

 

When he pulled away Keith couldn’t help the soft happy sigh that escaped him.

 

“I love you,” Keith whispered.

 

Lance laughed bright and giddily “I love you too, Keith. Holy hell, I love you.”

 

\--

 

Hunk and Pidge came by that evening for a movie night. Once they’d argued for a good twenty minutes over what movie to watch, or more like _Keith and Pidge_ argued and Hunk left them halfway through to go make popcorn, Lance had followed after he’d suggested they watch High School Music and been immediately shunned.

 

In the living room, Pidge was making a passionate speech about why tonight was the perfect night for a horror movie while Keith insisted that an action movie was better.

 

“Our life basically was an action movie!” Pidge said.

 

Keith sniped back with a remark about how it was more like a horror movie and at least action movies weren’t based around only jump scares, “Action movies have an actual plot!” He argued.

 

“Some semi-hot thirty-year-old man beating people up is not a plot!”

 

Hunk snorted at his friends shaking his head as Lance handed him the stick of butter “Those two,” he sighed “if they don’t decide in the next fifteen minutes we can totally just ditch them and watch High School Musical on my laptop.”

 

Lance laughed “Sounds good. Have movie nights always been like this?”

 

Hunk shrugged “More or less. Normally we’d decide eventually, but that’s just because Shiro gave everybody his dad look until we agreed.”

 

“Wow,” Lance chuckled “of course he’s being an asshole when you need him.”

 

Hunk frowned “He cares about you Lance, he means well.”

 

“Of course, I know that. I still don’t like the way he’s treating me.”

 

“Me either,” Hunk admitted, “but I’m sure he’ll come around.”

 

“Hopefully,” Lance said biting his lip.

 

“Sooo,” Hunk said switching topics “what’s the deal with you and Keith?” He said raising an eyebrow.

 

Lance immediately blushed “Nothing,” he muttered.

 

“Really?” Hunk asked with a knowing smile “Nothing at all?”

 

“I mean, we never officially labeled it,” Lance said in a small voice.

 

Hunk gasped “You mean something actually happened?” he said incredulously.

 

“Did you not expect anything to?”

 

“Well, I always figured it’d take you two much longer to get your heads on straight.”

 

Lance passed up the chance to make a joke about not being straight to ask: “Always? Wasn’t I dating somebody, Allura?”

 

Hunk’s expression became pained “Yeah, you were. I can’t really tell you much about that though.”

 

“Why? Because I’m supposed to remember on my own.”

 

“No, I mean yes. It’s a good idea to have you remember on your own rather than telling you things, that way you’re not getting memories from other people painted by personal biases. Keith was smart about that, but that’s not why I can’t tell you. I can’t because I don’t know much about your relationship with Allura.” Hunk shrugged “You had a crush on her for a long time but I’d seen you when you were serious about people and I knew you weren’t serious about Allura. I figured it was just a meaningless crush to give you something to focus on. I was really surprised when you started dating, mostly because I could have sworn you were into Keith. Though I’ll be honest, I could totally be wrong about it because it was really hard to read you when it came to Keith.”

 

“What do you mean?” Lance asked.

 

“I mean for a long time I thought you didn’t like him much just like everybody else assumed. Even after you guys became friends and started working as a good team you were always prickly  But then one night you were rambling to me about how much he sucked and I realized that you seemed to pay a whole lot of attention to everything he did for someone who hated him so much.”

 

There was a momentary pause before Lance tilted his head and spoke “And Allura, is she… dead?”

 

Hunk nodded sadly “Yeah,”

 

“Okay, I wasn’t sure because I heard that the blue paladin was dead but people also said the red paladin was dead, which isn’t true.”

 

“No,” Hunk said taking a deep breath “She’s gone… the Garrison just decided after you lost your memory that telling the public that you were dead was best for your safety, so you could live the rest of your life in peace or whatever.”

 

Lance snorted “That’s bullshit.”

 

“Yeah, I have to agree with you there. But I admit that I… wasn’t here so I didn’t get a vote.”

 

“Where were you?”

 

Hunk waved a hand over his head “Space,” he said vaguely

 

“Space?”

 

“Yeah… I didn’t come back to Earth after the war ended, couldn’t stomach it I guess. It’s funny because I was never one for adventure, all I wanted was to go back home while I was in space. I wasn’t like everyone else, even you, though you were homesick while we were gone you still thrived on the fighting and adventure. I never wanted it, so I never thought I’d stay in space, but...” Hunk shrugged “turns out I like space a lot more when there isn’t an intergalactic war going on. I opened a space restaurant with the help of my girlfriend Shay, and I really like it up there.”

 

“Ohh!” Lance said excitedly “A space restaurant? How is it a space restaurant?”

 

Hunk laughed lightly “It basically like a space station, floats around in space and stuff.”

 

“Wow, that’s cool.”

 

“Yeah, I love it.”

 

“Hey,” Keith said poking his head into the kitchen and interrupting their conversation “is the popcorn done?”

 

“That depends,” Hunk raised his eyebrows “did you guys decide on a movie?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith said.

 

“Hallelujah, it’s a miracle.” Lance said

 

Keith rolled his eyes and Lance chuckled. Keith shot him a glare and stalked away. They followed Keith back into the living room. Hunk took the chair near Pidge who was sprawled out on the floor while Lance sat down next to Keith.

 

Keith shot Lance a small soft smile as they settled next to each other

 

“What are we watching?”

 

“Heathers,” Pidge said.

 

Hunk snorted “I mean I’m not sure how you got from horror or action movies to Heathers but I’m not complaining.”

 

“I figured it was a good compromise for all of our tastes,” she shrugged.

 

“Cool,” Lance said, “pass the popcorn.”

 

The sat back to watch the movie and Keith despite agreeing to watch it still didn’t really get it.

 

“So he just wants to kill everyone?” He asked halfway through the movie.

 

“Yes, now shush,” Lance said waving a hand in Keith’s face to quiet him.

 

“But that’s kind of stupid,” Keith said pressing on.

 

Before he could start his speech about why JD’s tactics were bad Lance pressed a finger to his lips “I swear to god Keith, shut up and watch the movie.”

 

Keith pouted crossing his arms but shut his mouth.

 

Keith was quiet for the rest of the movie but as soon as the credits started to roll he started to rant.

 

“I don’t understand! What the hell did I just watch?”

 

A fond smile crept its way onto Lance’s face as he watched Keith rant, Pidge and Hunk were completely ignoring him at this point instead intent on splitting up the last of the popcorn between them (Hunk had made _a lot_ ).

 

Lance took this chance to pull Keith into a quick kiss effectively silencing him. As Lance pulled away Keith let out a bubbly giggle his mood changing instantly, at that Hunk and Pidge who’d missed the whole scene spun around to face them.

 

Keith flushed red and Hunk raised an eyebrow.

 

“Did you just fucking giggle Keith, what the fuck?” Pidge asked.

 

Keith coughed awkwardly “No,”

 

Lance laughed silently his shoulders shaking at Keith's uncomfortableness.

 

“I don’t understand,” Pidge said crossly with the air of someone who wasn’t used to not understanding things.

 

“That’s because you’re oblivious.”

 

“Am not!” she said offended.

 

Hunk shrugged “It’s not an insult, just a fact.

 

“Hmph,” Pidge said crossing her arms.

 

“You’re so dramatic Pidge,” Lance teased.

 

“I’m going to strangle you with my shoelaces.”

 

“Okay, wow.” Hunk said stepping in “We do not threaten bodily harm in this house.”

 

“Says who?” Pidge asked, “This isn’t your house.”

 

“Says me, it’s my place and the rule is no one can threaten bodily harm except me,” Keith said firmly.

 

“Wow, that’s not fair.”

 

“My house my rules.”

 

Pidge made a face “You sound like my mom.”

 

“Aw, Keith!” Lance cooed “You’re a mom friend.”

 

Hunk snorted “If Keith’s a mom friend then he’s the kind of mom that encourages their children to beat up their bullies and steal vodka for them.”

 

Lance rolled his eyes “No way Hunk, that is not a type of mom.”

 

“It totally is!” Hunk argued.

 

As Lance and Hunk argued about the types of moms Keith watched Lance as he talked animatedly waving his hands around a lot. And there may or may not have been a love-struck smile on Keith’s face, he couldn’t help it. Pidge looked over at Keith taking in his expression her eyes went wide.

 

“Oh!” She said interrupting Lance who was explaining that there were more factors to being a soccer mom than simply having a kid who plays soccer. “I get it now! Lance and Keith are totally fucking! Or… I dunno doing whatever people who like each other romantically do.”

 

Keith choked on his breath and there was a moment of silence before Lance burst out laughing.

 

“Oh my god, oh my god,” He said through his hysterics “You have no tact Pidge!”

 

Hunk and Pidge joined in the laughter enjoying their friend’s joy and soon even Keith was laughing after recovering from his choking fit.

 

And in the midst of this Keith had a bit of a revelation. He’d grown to hate everything Voltron was, the fighting, the pain, the death, loss. The scars physical and mental. It had taken their innocence.

 

So he hated it.

 

But as he was surrounded by his team Keith realized that Voltron was never really the fighting or the war or even the multi-colored sentient robot lions.

 

No _this_ , was Voltron.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um so I got over-excited and decided to post this even though I haven't even started writing chapter sixteen yet.


	16. Texas Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to cry. 
> 
> writing 
> 
> IS HARD
> 
> forgive any errors in this chapter my brain was not working while editing

 

Lance sleeps in Keith’s bed again that night. He’s hesitant to ask at first but as they’re getting ready for bed Keith casually says:

 

“Sleep with me again,” Touching Lance’s wrist softly as he passed by to put away his toothbrush.

 

Lance wiggled his eyebrows “That’s very forward of you,”

 

“Not like that you asshole!” Keith said indignantly hitting Lance with a hand towel.

 

“Ow!” Lance said dramatically “That hurt.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes “Sleep in the same bed beside me, unless you’re going to be annoying then you can sleep on the couch.”

 

“No, no! I will not be annoying. I am never annoying. In fact, Not Annoying is my middle name.”

 

“Sure,” Keith said with an eye roll turning his back and leaving the bathroom.

 

After brushing his face and washing his face Lance made his way to Keith’s bedroom.

 

The light was off except for the lamp on the bedside table which cast a soft warm glow across the room. Keith was sprawled out on one side of the bed arm over his eyes, breathing deeply already half asleep. As Lance switched off the lamp and crawled into bed Keith shifted automatically towards him like he was being pulled in to Lance by some magnetic force.

 

Last night feeling small and scared Lance had curled up against Keith searching for protection. Tonight he felt like himself again and he stretched out easily lying on his back with his arms behind his head. Keith on lying on his side wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist and rested his head on his chest.

 

Keith was so warm and Lance smiled to himself in the dark. The past day had made every bad thing and painful moment that had happened in the last week feel like it was completely insignificant.

 

A part of Lance’s brain that sounded a lot like his Abuela insisted that they were probably moving too fast. But it didn’t feel fast to Lance, it felt like he’d been waiting his entire life for this. To be able to kiss Keith, hold him, touch him, tell him he loved him.

 

And so that’s what Lance did, brushing the hair from Keith’s forehead Lance wrapped an arm around Keith’s shoulder pulling him even closer and pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. “I love you,” he whispered into the dark, a small little secret just for the two of them.

 

“Love you too,” Keith said. The words whispered into Lance’s side were muffled but Lance heard him perfectly “I’ve never felt this much before,” Keith admitted it like a secret “but you make me feel like I’m just going to explode with happiness. I never thought I’d have you.”

 

“But you do,” Lance whispered, “You have me, all of me, forever or for as long as you want me.”

 

“I want you forever,” Keith said quietly.

 

It echoed in the dark like a promise.

 

\--

 

“So,” Lance says over a quiet breakfast the next day “I was thinking, I want to go talk to Shiro today.”

 

“Okay, do you want me to come with you?”

 

Lance shook his head “Not this time, I think this is something I need to do on my own.”

 

“Okay,” Keith said accepting his choice “but I’m here if you need me.”

 

“I know,” Lance got up and put his plate in the dishwasher before coming around to where Keith was still sitting at the table and leading over to leave a gentle kiss on Keith’s head “and thank you.”

 

Keith looked up at Lance “Of course,” He said softly.

 

Lance leaned down to kiss Keith full on the mouth, it started out chaste and easy but they should have known better by now. It only took a minute before Keith had pulled Lance onto his lap. His arms wrapped around Lance’s waist and Lance’s finger twisted into Keith’s hair.

 

The broke away after a few long minutes panting.

 

“I should probably go if I want to catch Shiro before work,” Lance said breathlessly but he didn’t stop Keith from stealing another kiss, and then another.

 

Finally, Lance pulled away taking in Keith’s pink cheeks, red lips, and now even messier than usual hair. He laughed lowly to himself “God, you’re perfect.” Lance said warmly.

 

Keith leaned forward kissing Lance’s shoulder where his shirt hung off his shoulders exposing his collar bone and soft golden skin. “Hm,” he hummed into Lance’s skin “I don’t know about that, but this is definitely perfect.”

 

Lance laughed quietly from his chest the sound rough and low, Keith could feel the vibrations in Lance’s chest. “I agree.”

 

He gave Keith one last kiss before swinging himself off his lap, Keith whined at the loss and Lance chuckled. He grabbed his keys off the table and kissed Keith lightly on the cheek before slipping out the door with a grin and a wave.

 

\--

 

Lance had barely rung the doorbell before the door was swung open by Curtis who looked harried, to say the least.

 

“Oh,” he said surprised “Hi Lance,”

 

“Hey Curtis, is Shiro around?”

 

“Yes!” Curtis said beckoning Lance inside “Please go talk to him and maybe do me a favor and subtly mention how it is not a good idea to get a dog right now and how he should listen to his wonderful fiancé.”

 

Lance chuckled “He’s trying to convince you to get a dog?”

 

“Yes,” Curtis sighed “he’s been going on about it all morning and at this point, I'm ready to strangle him.”

 

“How about a corgi?” Shiro called to Curtis as they entered the kitchen. “Also who was at the door?” He asked not looking away from his laptop screen which featured many pictures of corgis.

 

“No, and Lance,” Curtis answered his two questions.

 

“Lance?” Shiro asked looking up.

 

“Hey,” Lance greeted.

 

Curtis rolled up the sleeves of his uniform and grabbed his keys.

 

“Where are you going?” Shiro asked his attention turning to Curtis

 

“I have work,” Curtis said rolling his eyes in a way that told Lance he had probably spent too much time around Keith “some of us actually have to go in rather than working from home until lunch. Or in your case looking at dogs when you have paperwork to do.” Curtis scolded.

 

A half-smile made its way onto Lance’s face. Normally Shiro seemed so mature and slightly intimidating but under Curtis’s scolding gaze he seemed like a toddler who’d been caught trying to sneak a squirrel into the house. Yes, fun fact: that had actually happened to Lance when he was younger, his mama had _not_ been amused.

 

Shiro crossed his arms grumpily “Okay, okay. I’ll see you later, have a good day. I promise I’ll stop looking at dogs now.”

 

Curtis kissed Shiro quickly on the cheek “You better.” Curtis said sternly, and then a little warmer: “I love you.”

 

“Love you too,” Shiro said.

 

“Bye,” He turned to Lance “and bye Lance, I’ll see you around, yeah?”

 

“Probably,” he shrugged.

 

“Cool,” Curtis nodded.

 

He gave one last wave before disappearing out the door.

 

“So,” Shiro said turning to Lance once Curtis had left “what’s up?”

 

“Well, I wanted to talk to you.”

 

Shiro nodded “Okay, have a seat.” He said gesturing to a seat at the kitchen table.

 

Lance took it, he sat down lacing his finger together in his lap.

 

“I know you don’t like that I’m around,” Lance said diving right into the conversation.

 

Shiro looked taken aback for a moment by Lance’s bluntness before shaking his head “No, no. That’s not true. I’m glad you’re here.”

 

“Really?” Lance raised his eyebrows looking unconvinced.

 

“Yes,” Shiro said earnestly.

 

Lance pursed his lips “If that’s so, then why are you acting like this? Pushing me away, trusting the Garrison over us, and clearly disapproving of me being around Keith.”

 

“It-it’s…” Shiro trailed off with a grimace “It’s not that I don’t want you around. But my superiors ordered us to stay away from you and by breaking that it goes against everything that’s been drilled into by working with the military. You know, follow orders. And-“ he bit his lip “well, Curtis says I’m too trusting of the Garrison, but if I don’t trust them then who can I trust?”

 

“Your brother,” Lance pointed out “us. We are the ones who have had your back and been there for you, not the Garrison. They told everybody you were dead Shiro, and as someone who has had the same thing happen to me I can’t imagine that you felt fine with this.”

 

“I wasn’t. But they’re different now.”

 

Lance let out a breath understanding for the first time. Shiro needed to believe that the Garrison was better, he needed to believe that they were in the right because if he didn’t then he’d have to accept that he made a mistake. Lance could imagine how that must be hard for Shiro, to come to terms with the fact that Lance could have been lied to and spent years not knowing who he was, all for nothing. 

 

So Lance nodded “Okay, I understand that that’s what you believe. But don’t let your trust blind you, you don’t have to think that the Garrison are the bad guys, but just keep your eyes open please.”

 

“Yeah,” Shiro said taking a deep breath “I can do that.”

 

“Good.” Lance said “But then what about Keith? Why don’t you want me being around him? And don’t say you that’s not true because I know it is. It’s obvious and I know you and Keith were arguing about me the other day.”

 

Shiro sighed his expression tired and a little pained “Look…” He said rubbing the bridge of his nose “It’s nothing against you Lance, I just want to keep Keith safe. He’s like my brother, hell he’s practically my kid, I raised him. I just don’t want to see him hurt.”

 

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Lance frowned.

 

“Maybe not intentionally.”

 

“No. Tell me why you think I’d hurt him, intentionally or not.”

 

Shiro took a deep breath “It’s not really my secret to tell but… Keith’s in love with you, or at least he was, and I think he still is.”

 

Lance couldn’t help it he let out a burst of laughter at that.

 

Shiro made a face clearly confused “How on earth is that funny?”

 

“No, no, it’s not funny just…” Lance giggled a little more before taking a breath and steadying himself ‘Sorry,” he said putting on a straight face “What I mean is that I already know and you acting like it was a big secret that was going to blow my mind was just funny to me. Sorry.”

 

“Wait…” Shiro clearly hadn’t expected this turn of events “You already know? How?”

 

“Um it was kind of simple really, I asked Keith if he used to love me and he said yes. Or I mean he’s Keith he didn’t say yes he said that he ‘guessed so’ which is as straight of an answer as he gives I suppose.” Lance shrugged.

 

“So you just asked him?”

 

“Yes,”

 

“So you could tell?”

 

“That he loves me? I mean duh, it’s kind of obvious.”

 

Shiro’s face became even more perplexed, this wasn’t making sense to him “Obvious? But Keith is so far from obvious, he’s impossible to read and it took me six months and four interrogations before I found out for sure that he had feelings for you.”

 

Lance shrugged “I don’t think he’s hard to read, maybe you’re just not looking right.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“It’s clear that you still see Keith as a kid, but he’s not anymore. I know you don’t want him to get hurt, but he can handle himself and you have to know that. Even if he were to get hurt then he’d be okay because he’s Keith and he’s resilient. You need to stop being scared for him. My mama once told me that the hardest part of her kids growing up was learning that she couldn’t protect us from everything and that she had to step back and let us make our own mistakes. How would we have learned anything if my mother had saved us from every heartbreak and bump in the road?”

 

There was a moment’s pause before Shiro responded quietly “But I’m afraid, I don’t want to lose Keith too.”

 

“You won’t.” Lance said earnestly “In fact, I think you’re pushing him away more the way you’re acting now.”

 

Shiro nodded slowly “You’re right,” he said heavily.

 

 “I know.”

 

\--

 

“I have a question,” Lance said to Keith.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Why don’t you ever go to work? Don’t you work at the Garrison like Shiro and Curtis?”

 

“Oh, well not exactly. I came back to Earth to help out the Garrison but technically my job is with the Blade of Marmora, so it’s not like what Shiro and Curtis do. I don’t have a set schedule, here on Earth I mostly work from home and behind the scenes with the occasional traveling and stuff.”

 

“Hm, that’s pretty cool.” Lance said, “I like working on my farm because I can run my own schedule.”

 

“Yeah, it’s nice.”

 

Lance nodded and then looked away his eyes drawn to the window, the sun was setting and the Texas sky filled Lance with a calm, content feeling.

 

Today had been nice, after talking with Shiro Lance spent the rest of the day with Keith, they filled the time with lazy kissed and laughter now they were draped over each other on the living room couch. It was perfect, in fact, all the time Lance had spent with Keith had been perfect. He wished he could live the rest of his life like this, but it felt almost too good to be true. Lance was afraid that any change would break the spell, shatter these wonderful moments. But he couldn’t stay here forever, Lance knew he had to accept this.

 

“Keith,” Lance said softly.

 

“Hm?”

 

“I have to go.”

 

Keith straightened up with a frown his expression becoming guarded like he was just waiting for Lance to hurt him, “What do you mean?” He asked carefully.

 

Lance sighed “I wish I could stay right here forever, but… I need to go home and have a talk with my family. I know Veronica was supposed to visit everyone in two days, my family have been talking about it for months. I know everyone will be around to see her and I’ve been ignoring calls from my family, even before I started getting back my memories.” He sighed “A part of me wants to just drop everything, leave them off the hook and never look back…” Lance shook his head sadly “But I could never do that to my family and I could never really be happy if I left this unresolved. This is probably the best opportunity I’ll have to talk to everyone.”

 

“Okay,” Keith said softly “I understand.”

 

Lance took his hand giving him a gentle smile “Thank you,”

 

“You’re not going to run off, are you? This isn’t going to be one of those things where the person says ‘I’ll be back soon’ but then I never see them again?”

 

“What? No! Of course not, you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

 

“Oh,” Keith said the tension easing out of his shoulders “Okay, I just wanted to be sure.”

 

Lance dropped a soft kiss on Keith’s cheek “That’s happened to you before?” He asked gently.

 

Keith hesitated for a second before answering “Yeah,” he said quietly “my father…”

 

Lance didn’t say anything letting Keith gather his thoughts.

 

He took a breath before continuing “I was young, I don’t remember how young exactly but I think about four or five. He dropped me off at the park one day. I’d been begging him to let me go all day and finally he gave in, I was with my friend and her mom. My dad told me to behave and be respectful to my friend’s mom, said he’d see me soon and drove off. That was the last time I ever saw him. Our house burned down that night, they never knew what happened and they found his body. For so long I thought that meant he was still out there somewhere. That’d he’d see me again because he promised he would. Maybe it’s wrong or sick of me, but sometimes now, I hope he’s dead because if he’s not then that means he abandoned me.”

 

“Oh, Keith.” Lance said softly “I’m sorry,”

 

“Thank you,” Keith whispered “It’s okay though, it was a long time ago. I still don’t know what happened but I accepted when I was a teenager that I probably never will.”

 

Lance pulled Keith and closer “Hey, you never know. If you can save the universe in colored robot lions then who says you can’t find out someday? Weirder things have happened.”

 

Keith laughed and the mood of the room brightened a little “Yeah,” he smiled “I guess you’re right.”

 

\--

 

The sun was still rising as Lance and Keith stood outside in the morning air. The Texas sky was that perfect shade of blue that it only ever was in the morning streaked with red and orange.

 

“I’m gonna miss you,” Keith admitted quietly once they’d loaded Lance’s bags into his truck.

 

“I’ll miss you too, but I’ll be back.”

 

“I know, but I still don’t like saying goodbye.”

 

“Then don’t,” Lance said simply with a smile.

 

“Okay, I love you.”

 

“Love you too.” Lance smiled pulling him into a sweet kiss.

 

Keith returned his smile once they’d broken apart and Lance turned and climbed into his truck. He blew Keith a kiss and Keith chuckled as Lance started the engine and pulled away.

 

He didn’t look back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have two things to say:
> 
> 1\. I came up with the idea for my next fic the other night and it's taking everything in me not to start writing it now, I'm so excited!! But don't worry I swear I'm gonna finish this one first. I'm 75% done writing this story and it's very exciting!
> 
> 2\. I made Spotify playlists for this fic if you guys are interested! One of them is all country songs because I figured it takes place in Texas so it fits the theme, the other one is songs that aren't country songs because I know country music is not everybody's taste. 
> 
> here's the links:  
> country playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5o6mk2xHhaFHiVQw3qL8SQ?si=v67O1sjaS4uOs--u_VEaPw
> 
> not country playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0YuaTxpr8Ks2jO638hKIKZ?si=KZr3bn83QsWY8pDzX6XGdg


	17. Family Matters

Lance knew he was in for a scolding when he showed up at his parents’ house. He thought he was prepared for it, really. But the thing is no one was ever really prepared for his mama. After she’d finished yelling at him in Spanish she sat him down, insisted he eat and turned her scolding into an interrogation.

 

“Where have you been?” She asked putting her hands on her hips.

 

All Lance’s family was gathered around to watch Lance get scolded, what assholes. Marco even had the audacity to smirk when Lance mouthed “ _help me_ ” at him. He did not help Lance at all.

 

“Um, Texas…” Lance said meekly.

 

Her eyebrows shot up “Texas?” she asked clearly trying to keep her voice casual

 

“Yeah, I visited Ronnie, she didn’t tell you?”

 

“No,” She said turning around and sending a sharp glare towards Veronica who was hiding in the corner “she most definitely did not.”

 

“Oh, well that’s where I was. I had an agriculture thing nearby and stopped in to visit Veronica, and then I got a little sidetracked, I guess.”

 

“Sidetracked?” Her brow furrowing “I thought you left. I told you to stop by before you left and you never did and you weren’t replying to my texts so I figured you were back to ghosting me and had taken off.”

 

“Oh no, I just didn’t feel like talking to people who lie to me?”

 

Veronica froze “What are you talking about?” she asked stiffly.

 

“Why don’t you tell me?” Lance asked cocking his head.

 

“I-I don’t know,”

 

“Right,” Lance said standing up and crossing his arms and standing up “Well lucky for you I met some people in Texas that didn’t want to lie to me. Or not met I suppose because I already knew them…” Lance said.

 

“Keith.” Veronica said putting the pieces together “God, I should have known better, I should have realized he wouldn’t let it go.” She said the next part mostly to herself “I should have sent you away as soon as you showed up with them there.”

 

“Probably,” Lance shrugged “But you didn’t and now I know.”

 

“What so Keith told you? Does he not understand how much trouble he could get in for that?”

 

“Firstly, no he didn’t tell me. He was kind of annoying about not telling me actually, and secondly, I don’t think Keith cares about getting in trouble. It’s his opinion that ‘the Garrison can go fuck themselves’ which I agree with.”

 

It was a testament to how shocked his family was that his mama didn’t even scold him for cursing.

 

“How much time did you spend with Keith? What do you know? And what the hell do you mean by saying he didn’t tell you, who did then?”

 

“Um a lot of time, don’t know how much, most of the last week. Nobody told me. I started remembering.”

 

“What?” His papa asked stepping into the conversation for the first time “But the doctors told us that you would never remember.”

 

“Pretty sure they lied.” Lance shrugged.

 

“But how much do you remember?” Luis asked.

 

“Not everything… but enough. I remember being a part of Voltron, the only full pieces I have are like a few weeks before I lost my memories I think.”

 

“God,” Luis shook his head “I never thought…”

 

“You guys lied to me,” Lance said flatly.

 

“We- we didn’t want to,” Lance’s mama said quietly “But we didn’t want you to hurt and they said you’d be happier this way, they said there was a very small chance of you being able to remember.”

 

“And you believed them?”

 

“They are the ones in charge, no? Why would they lie?”

 

“I don’t know,” Lance bit his lip “I’ll find out though,” he said determinedly “the Garrison _is_ hiding something. If they think they can keep it a secret from me they have another thing coming for them.”

 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lance,” Veronica said warningly.

 

Lance rolled his eyes “Not you too,” he sighed “I got enough of that Garrison loyalty shit from Shiro. The Garrison is weak, they weren’t the ones who saved the universe, and they’re not always right.”

 

“I know, I know that! But they’re the government.”

 

“And?”

 

“And you can’t just go around talking about them like that!”

 

Before Lance could say anything his communicator started to ring in his pocket, he sighed putting his response on hold so he could answer the call.

 

“Just a sec,” he said before pressing the button to answer.  “Hello?”

 

 _“Hey, it’s me, I just wanted to check and make sure you made it home alright_.”

                                     

The sound of Keith’s voice in his ear was familiar and instantly made him feel more at ease “Hey,” Lance said softly any anger in his voice ebbing away “I did,”

 

_“You okay? You sound a little rough.”_

 

“I am, I mean… yeah. You know, there’s a lot of shit to work out.”

 

_“Wait are you in the middle of something?”_

 

“Um… kind of. I mean my entire family is here and we were _talking_.”

 

_“Oh! Sorry, I’ll let you go,”_

“You don’t have to…” Lance said a note of pleading in his voice.

 

_“No, Lance, you know I should. I’ll call you again tonight, okay?”_

“Okay… I’ll talk to you then.”

 

_“You don’t have to say it back in front of your family, I know we’re not telling anyone about us yet, but I love you,”_

 

A little soft sigh escaped Lance at Keith’s consideration, he didn’t know how he’d got so lucky “I- me too, to you.”

 

Keith laughed lowly _“I’ll talk to you later, bye Lance.”_

“Bye,”

 

He ended the call and slipped is communicator back into his pocket.

 

“Who was that?” Veronica asked.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Lance said his voice making it clear that there was no room to push him on this.

 

“Okay…” Veronica’s mouth twisted in an expression that looked partly unsure and partly like she didn’t trust her brother.

 

“Look,” Lance said going back to the earlier conversation “I know you guys only lied because you thought you were doing what was best for me, and I understand that but that doesn’t make it okay.”

 

“I know,” Lance’s mama said sadly “we have regretted it, but we… just wanted you to be happy. We were convinced that this was the only way for you to be.”

 

“Yes, I know. I love you, mama, I love all of you, but no more lies, okay?”

 

“Yes, of course.” His mama said tearfully.

 

She pulled him into a tight hug and Lance wasn’t going to lie, he cried a little.

 

\--

 

“Hey,” Luis said knocking on the door frame of Lance's childhood bedroom. The stars were still stuck on the ceiling. It gave Lance of feeling everything always coming back to this, to these. Fucking stars.

 

“What’s up?” Lance asked.

 

Luis was Lance's eldest sibling, he was married and had four kids and had always felt so adult to Lance that he’d never felt he was able to form as close of a relationship as Lance wanted to with his brother.

 

“I wanted to talk to you,”

 

“Sure, come in.”

 

Luis did, perching himself on the edge of Lance's bed.

 

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Luis said after a moment “I fought for as long as I could, even after everyone else had caved. But… the Garrison wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

 

“I understand,” Lance said, “I’m not so mad, I was at first but I get it now.”

 

Luis looked over at Lance a sad expression on his face “I'm sorry,” Luis said softly.

 

It hit Lance that his brother was the first of his family to actually apologize. “Thank you,” Lance said earnestly.

 

Luis took a deep breath studying his little brother “You know, it scared them, it scared me too. When you came home with Voltron when the Galra invaded. You were different, a soldier. Logically we knew when you joined the Garrison that you would technically be a soldier, but thinking of you as becoming a pilot and then seeing you as someone who wasn’t just a pilot but a soldier and a savior of the universe. You had a gun, scars, you were always tense like you were waiting for a fight. It was scary for us, suddenly it felt like we didn’t even know you.” Luis bit his lip his forehead creased “so I think when we were told that you had brain damage and amnesia we might have seen it as a partly a good thing, a chance for you to be happy and… for us to get our Lance back. It was wrong. We should have tried to get to know the new version of you, even though it scared us.”

 

“I-“ Lance didn’t really know what to say “I wish you guys had said something to me, I would have understood. I knew I was different.”

 

“I know, there’s… a lot I regret.” Luis said heavily.

 

“But there’s nothing you can do about that now,” Lance said simply “all you can do is try to do better in the future.”

 

Luis laughed ruffling Lance's hair “Wow, I can’t believe my little brother is so wise.”

 

“Well,” Lance shrugged “guess I’m not so little anymore.”

 

“No,” Luis said frowning slightly “I guess not… truth is, I feel like I missed it all when you were little. I didn’t realize I wasn’t in your life enough until after you went missing. I swore to myself then that if you were ever found I would make sure to be there for you. But then you came back a different person and then lost your memories. You were so distant after that and I didn’t know how to be around you and lie…”

 

“Then do better now,” Lance urged.

 

“I- yes, I will. I mean I’m going to try.”

 

Lance smiled “Good,”

 

Luis returned Lance's smile leaning back a little, more at ease. “So…” his demeanor changing slightly “what’s the deal with you and Keith?”

 

Lance blushed not expecting this sudden sneak attack. “You can tell? That there's you know, a _deal_?”

 

“Well, yeah… your voice changed a bit when you mentioned him earlier, you got softer and a lot less angry.”

 

“Do you think everyone noticed?” Lance asked quietly.

 

“No I don’t think so, they were all too focused on being ashamed.”

 

“But not you?”

 

“Nah, I’m used to being ashamed.” Luis shrugged.

 

Lance laughed “Then I’m surprised Marco didn’t notice, if anyone’s used to it he should be.”

 

“No way, I’m pretty sure Marco has no shame, otherwise there’s no way he would have survived this long. Well, that, but he also wouldn’t notice because  he’s completely oblivious.”

 

Lance chuckled.

 

“So,” Luis said, “what is it then?”

 

“What is what?”

 

“The _deal_ ,”

 

“oh,” Lance said sheepishly “it's complicated… I used to love Keith, but I lied, to him, to everyone, to Allura… I thought it was for the best. Maybe it really was at the time, I wanted to keep him safe. But I guess losing your memory and then getting it back really gives you a new perspective.” He shrugged “I told him the truth, or most of it at least. I don’t think I’ll be ready to tell him until I have all my memories back.”

 

“But you told him you loved him?”

 

Lance nodded “I did.”

 

“And so what? Are you guys dating now? Did it work out?”

 

“Um, we haven’t labeled it—”

 

“But you're together!” Luis said excitedly.

 

“Shush!” Lance hissed “I don’t want it announced to the whole family now!” his cheeks reddened. “But, yes…”

 

“I knew you guys had a thing for each other,” Luis said proudly. “When Voltron was first leaving Earth with the Atlas, Mama and Papa wanted to try and stop you from going, Keith noticed the way they were acting and talked to them. He convinced them to let you go without a fight.”

 

“He did? That’s… not very characteristic of him. He’s proven not to be the best with talking.”

 

Luis shrugged “I guess he can be when it matters most.”

 

\--

 

The day after Lance left Keith went out to dinner with Curtis and Shiro. Curtis insisted. He wanted them to have a _family dinner_. Because yes, as unusual of a family as they were, Shiro and Curtis the engaged couple with their kid who wasn’t their kid but Shiro’s brother but not actually, they were a family, and Curtis was set on reminding them of this.

 

Though Keith was still a little angry at Shiro, he was perfectly pleasant throughout dinner, not saying a single seemingly polite but actually condescending thing. It made Keith wonder what exactly Lance had said to Shiro the other day.

 

“So where’s Lance tonight?” Curtis asked as they were getting the check after dinner.

 

Shiro seemed to go a bit stiller than usual but he said nothing.

 

“Oh, he went home to talk with his family. I think it definitely needed to happen.”

 

“That makes sense,” Curtis said.

 

“Is- is he coming back?” Shiro asked.

 

Keith nodded “Yeah,”

 

“Do you know when?”

 

“When he’s ready.” Keith shrugged

 

\--

 

“So,” Curtis said as they were waiting at the door of the restaurant for Shiro, he’d seen someone he knew and went over to chat, Curtis and Keith politely declined going with him ”How have you been, kid?”

 

“Uh, I don’t really know…” Keith admitted “I can’t explain it. This week felt like a million years. So much has happened, it hasn’t all quite caught up with me yet.”

 

“That’s understandable, things changed fast. But I’m glad you and Lance found each other. Maybe I’m out of the loop because I didn’t really know Lance before, but he belongs in your life and I’ll definitely help you fight anyone who says otherwise.”

 

“Even Shiro?”

 

Curtis rolled his eyes “Especially Shiro,”

 

Keith laughed “So did you basically just give me your blessing?”

 

“Sure,”

 

“What?” Shiro asked appearing suddenly.

 

“Curtis just gave me permission to fight you.”

 

Shiro shook his head unsurprised by their antics. “Okay, cool. We ready to go?”

 

Curtis sighed “We were waiting on you Takashi, don’t be a dumbass.”

 

“You know what? I miss the days when you were too nervous to hold a proper conversation with me.”

 

“Yeah but then I realized you're actually a giant dork and not scary at all.” Curtis shrugged sweeping out the door and into the night air before Shiro could respond.

 

“Why am I marrying him again?” Shiro asked eyes on the door that Curtis had just walked through.

 

“Because you love him,” Keith said patting Shiro sympathetically on the back. “It's your own fault really.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing chapter 21 tonight so let's just say that things are PLANNED. Y'all are really in for it with the next chapters. We're in the lasts stretch now, there's only like 7,000 words left for me to write before I hit 50K so I hope you guys are happy. The thing is I'm over 40k words but I haven't even got to the last plot point of this story yet... so it might be over 50k 
> 
> AND my other klance fic idea has been eating away at my brain and I CAN'T WAIT to start writing it!!


	18. It's a Funny Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm almost finished writing this fic so prepare for a lot of updates within the next week. And I would like to thank god for the end of nanowrimo!

Going to sleep in his childhood bedroom didn’t feel quite as safe as Lance felt it should have. In fact, his mind was quite restless, it had a reason to be.

 

He’d been home a week the night it happened.

 

 

\--

 

The day Lance met Keith was a remarkable day, maybe that was a sign of what was to come, or maybe not. But either way, it _was_ remarkable.

 

His first day at the Garrison as a cadet, his family had dropped him off only hours before, he hasn’t even had time to feel homesick yet. Lance had met his roommate Hunk and he was really great. Now they were in orientation.

 

Halfway through the orientation, the doors opened a boy slunk in.

 

“Kogane! You're late.” The instructor said crossly.

 

“Sorry, I got lost.” The boy mumbled in a way that wasn’t entirely convincing.

 

Lance wondered briefly how the instructor already knew this kid's name before the orientation was continued and Kogane was lost in the crowd.

 

The next day Lance and his new friend Hunk tried to sit with the boy who Lance had now learned was Keith Kogane.

 

Keith responded to them by saying roughly “Leave me alone.” Before stalking off.

 

They didn’t try to be friends with him after that.

 

Years later Keith told Lance that he’d thought they were messing with him, he hadn’t believed that someone actually wanted to be his friend.

 

\--

 

“Boys!” Shiro yelled cutting them off mid-fight “Dear god, what do I have to do to for you guys to get along?”

 

“Keith started it!” Lance said in a way that was admittedly annoying.

 

“I didn’t you did! You always start the fights! You just like drama!”

 

“I do not! If you weren’t such a stuck up dick and actually listened to the team every once in a while—”

 

“That’s enough! Lance go help Coran clean the healing pods.” Shiro said furiously.

 

“But—” Lance interjected but Shiro cut him off once again. His expression made it clear that there was no room to argue.

 

Lance stalked off fuming, but not before shooting Keith a nasty glare.

 

\--

It’s a funny thing to love somebody you used to hate. Because you’ve already thought all the bad things about them seen every flaw, and so all there is left to see is the good, or at least that’s how it happened for Keith.

 

He just started to notice things.

 

He noticed the way Lance was always ready to step up, to be who the team needed, who Keith needed.

 

Lance was a big brother to Pidge, a best friend to Hunk, like a nephew to Coran and even Allura was very fond of him.

 

Keith couldn’t really tell how Shiro felt about Lance, he’d noticed Shiro tended to brush Lance off a lot. Keith didn’t like that.

 

The truth was, Keith thought that sometimes Lance let himself be overlooked. Be treated as less. Keith didn’t know why, maybe it was just what he was used to? But Keith saw Lance, he just didn’t know how to tell him that.

 

\--

It was three weeks after Lance had rejected Keith and he had tried his best to keep his composure. He was the leader of Voltron, he couldn’t break down like a child. But still, that didn’t stop him from being heartbroken.

 

He worked with Lance and they did their best, but the rest of the team noticed their distance, the uncomfortable silences, and stiff interactions.

 

“Well I guess they’re back to hating each other,” Shiro said with a shrug one day.

 

And that was that.

 

Wasn’t it? 

 

Maybe they were always supposed to hate each other.

 

Keith tried to believe that.

 

\--

 

Three days before Lance wound up in a coma and lost his memories he went missing. They were visiting Earth for a few short hours to get some repairs done on the Atlas after a particularly nasty battle. It was business as usual, they were sent out on their missions to get everything together, Lance was with Pidge but when she returned hours later she was panicked and alone.

 

“Where's Lance?” Allura asked.

 

“I don’t know, he just disappeared and he won’t answer his coms.”

 

“What?” Shiro asked alarmed. “We have to leave soon! Repairs are finished, almost everyone is boarded, we can’t afford for Lance to be pulling this shit.”

 

“Hey!” Hunk said crossing his arms “Don’t immediately blame Lance, you don’t know what happened, he could be in trouble.”

 

“Or he could not be, he’s been acting weird. I don’t trust it.” Allura said stiffly.

 

“He’s our teammate!” Pidge said indignantly.

 

“That doesn’t we should blindly trust him. Something's up.”

 

The team turned Keith waiting for his final say in the matter.

 

“Oh,” he said straightening up at the sudden attention “um, we should focus on finding Lance. Let’s split up and search for him, keep it quiet though. There’s no need to alert everybody to the fact that we're missing a paladin.”

 

Shiro sighed “I’ll let everyone know there’s a delay.”

 

\--

It was three hours later when they reconvened empty-handed

 

“What if he’s hurt?” Hunk asked a note of panic in his voice.

 

Pidge opened her mouth to respond but before she could say anything there was a flurry of motion and Lance burst into the room.

 

He didn’t look good.

 

His clothes were ripped and there was dust in his hair that showed he must have been outside in the desert. A long red slash ran along his arm.

 

“Lance!” Pidge shrieked “Where the hell have you been?”

 

“Um, you know what,” Lance said panting “That’s irrelevant right now, we need to go like immediately!”

 

“What?” Allura asked alarmed.

 

“Gotta go, now!”

 

When nobody moved Lance's frowned slightly his eyes bright and dangerous. “C'mon guys! Please trust me.”

 

“But how can we trust you? You’ve been acting off for months, you’re keeping secrets from us, how can we trust you when you won't tell us anything?” Allura said angrily. “How am I supposed to be your girlfriend if you never talk to me?”

 

Lance's reaction was almost non-existent, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t gasp, rather he shrugged and said: “Maybe you shouldn’t be then.”

 

Allura's jaw dropped in surprise “Are you breaking up with me?”

 

“Yes,” he said simply “I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me.”

 

“And I can’t be with someone who expects me to trust them while keeping me completely in the dark!”

 

“Okay, then fine,”

 

There was a moment of shocked silence while they processed the fact that Allura and Lance had just broken up in front of everybody.

 

“Um,” Pidge said in a small voice shattering the uncomfortable silence “I trust you, Lance, let’s go.”

 

She turned to Keith and he nodded “Right, okay.”

 

They boarded the Atlas and left Earth with no trouble, but Lance didn’t let his guard down, he stayed stiff and alert until they were out of the milky way.

 

\--

 

Lance took a deep breath before knocking.

 

“Lance?” Allura said surprised.

 

“Hey,” he said weakly “I… I wanted to apologize. I know I hadn’t been treating you right lately, and I’m sorry. You deserve better,”

 

Allura shook her head before laughing softly in a bittersweet sort of way “Thank you, Lance,” she paused “This was never going to work was it?”

 

“No,” Lance said, “I don’t think so.”

 

“Well,” she smiled softly “It was good while it lasted.”

 

“Yeah, but maybe we're better as friends.”

 

“Probably,”

 

“So… friends?”

 

She nodded “Friends,”


	19. It Comes to This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing this fic guy! It's done, now I'm just editing and I'll be posting the rest of the chapters over the next few weeks.
> 
> ahhhh I'm so excited for you guys to read everything!!!!

 

When it happened Lance wasn’t expecting it, he wasn’t ready.

 

It was only days after they’d left Earth, Lance hadn’t even got a chance to tell anyone what had happened there. He was afraid of what would happen if that secret died with him. But sacrifices had to be made.

 

Lance didn’t know long they’d been fighting, hours, days, weeks. 

 

But Haggar was ruthless. She was out of her mind with grief for the family she’d lost. She was determined to get it back, even if that meant destroying reality.

 

Honestly, Lance couldn’t say what had even happened during this battle. It was all a blur.

 

The only clear thing was the voice in the back of his head telling him what he needed to do.

 

As Allura stepped towards Haggar, Lance knew what she was trying to do, get through to Haggar, find redemption for her. She had been good once and Allura's heart was so kind that she was trying to bring that back. But Lance knew there was no redemption for Haggar.

 

And so without a second’s hesitation, Lance drew his Bayard and shot.

 

Allura stepped backward with a scream as Haggar fell.

 

“Lance!” Keith yelled in shock.

 

Lance turned to his team tears streaking down his face. “I’m sorry,” as he said the words dark cracks started to spread through the misty white empty place where they stood. Starting from where Haggar’s body lay and getting wider until the whole place shattered and they fell into the darkness with a scream.

 

When Lance opened his eyes he was back in his lion in space.

 

But the universe seemed to be breaking apart. A bright light cracking open space.

 

As his team shouted to each other over comms Lance found complete clarity. He knew exactly what he had to do now.

 

Sacrifices needed to be made and the truth was if he had to take the secret he’d recently discovered to the grave then that seemed like a balanced trade to save the universe.

 

“I’m sorry girl,” Lance whispered to Red “it’s been a pleasure flying with you.

 

In his head, Red gave a sad little purr made to comfort Lance.

 

Without a second thought, Lance urged Red forward straight towards where the light was brightest.

 

“Lance! What are you doing?” Keith screamed in Lance's ear.

 

Lance closed his eyes savoring the low timbre of Keith's voice one last time before switching off his comms and pushing ahead at full speed.

 

He tuned out everything but the task ahead.

 

As he reached the point where the cracks in reality originated from he closed his eyes.

 

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

 

He was engulfed by the light and then…

 

_Nothing._

\--

 

Keith screamed as Lance piloted his lion right into the center of the light.

 

“Oh my god!” Pidge yelled “No! That point right there is literally reality collapsing in on itself. Lance will die if he goes there!”

 

But it was too late.

 

Lance disappeared into the light.

 

There was a moment of deafening silence as their screams died out and the entire scene froze.

 

There was a moment of unnatural stillness.

 

And then...

 

_BOOM!_

 

The universe exploded and everything went black.

 

\--

 

Keith awoke choking on smoke.

 

His lion was dark and unresponsive but he could hear crackling in the com in his ear and the spotty sound of Pidge saying something.

 

_“—Allura she’s—WHAT… what do we—Lance…”_

Keith gave his helmet a good smack but when it did nothing to clear up the sound Keith carefully pulled himself out of his lion, cautious of his right leg which he must have hurt when he crashed.

 

As Keith emerged from Black he gasped. They were on an empty planet Keith didn’t recognize. Where he stood was barren but in the distance tall dark towers stretched up into the clouds.

 

To the other side, Keith could see the wreckage of Pidge's lion but she was nowhere to be seen. However, he could see the light of a fire crackling over the hill so he set off as quickly as his injured leg would allow.

 

When Keith made it over the hill he was greeted by flames licking up over a lion that shined blood-red in the burning light.

 

“Lance!” Keith gasped quickening his pace to a run.

 

Pidge and Hunk were already there. Hunk was trying to pry open Red with Pidge’s help. When she saw Keith she ran over.

 

“Keith!” Pidge said breathlessly. Her helmet was cracked and Keith could see blood on her face through the clear glass. “Allura is gone!”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“She crashed near me but when I went over to get her out, Blue was empty. There’s no sign of her anywhere!”

 

“Okay, okay,” Keith said taking a deep breath trying to steady himself. He was their leader, he needed to get it together and lead. “We'll find her, she probably just went to look around, scope out our surroundings. Comms are barely working, she might just be having trouble making contact. Let’s get Lance out of Blue and then we'll focus on Allura, okay?”

 

With Keith’s help, they got Blue open working quickly to pull Lance out.

 

Keith let out a dry sob as he cradled the red paladin in his arms.

 

Lance's eyes opened slowly blinking a few times before he seemed to come into focus “ _Keith_ ,” Lance gasped.

 

“Hey,” Keith whispered tears in his eyes “I’ve got you, it’s okay.”

 

Lance nodded weakly “Don’t leave me…”

 

“Never,” Keith promised quietly.

 

Lance coughed roughly his breath rattling in his chest like a box of matchsticks.

 

Lance's eyes closed, and they didn’t open again after that for a very long time.

 

\--

 

Keith paced back and forth, it had been three months since the war ended. He still didn’t understand it. The explosion that Lance had somehow set off had changed everything. That planet they'd crashed on turned out to be Daibazal. How? Keith didn’t know. But somehow it had appeared exactly as it had been before it’d been destroyed except empty.

 

At the same time, Altea had been returned to the place in the solar system where it used to be, good as new.

 

Allura, however, wasn’t around to see it. They’d never found her and with the state of her lion and the fatalities from the explosion… some people had actually been _vaporized_ when it happened _._ They’d been forced to accept the fact that all evidence pointed towards the same thing happening to Allura.

 

She was dead.

Lance was in a coma.

 

The team was dealing with a lot of grief. Hunk had taken off after the first month, going into space with a request for them not to try and contact him unless it was an emergency.

 

Coran had stationed himself on New Altea helping the Altean colonies settle down in their home, working to rebuild their civilization.

 

Pidge had thrown herself into her work as had Shiro.

 

So now Keith was the only paladin in the room alongside Lance's family with the doctors and the serious Garrison men who seemed too important to be here.

 

“He has brain damage,” the doctor said “the facts are that if he does wake up, there’s a very high chance that he will have suffered severe memory loss, and I’m sorry to say that memory loss is the least severe of the symptoms he could experience. There could be loss of cognitive functions or changes in personality as well.”

 

Lance's mother put a hand to her face, she had tears in her eyes.

 

“Mr. Mclain as the red paladin is our top priority. We need to talk about plans for when he awakes.”

 

“What do you mean?” Luis Lance's eldest brother asked.

 

“Well,” the doctor said “Mr. Mclain has experienced is significant trauma which will be very harmful to his mental health. After great debate with fellow doctors and mental health specialists, we came to the conclusion that after Mr. Mclain wakes it would be best not to attempt to restore his memory. The scans show that the loss will be quite large and the chances of them being able to be restored are uh… slim to nothing.” He shrugged in a way that made Keith’s blood boil, like Lance forgetting everything was no big deal.

 

“Of course it’s your decision to make, but I think he will get much more out of his life if he never knows what he has forgotten.”

 

“So let me get this straight,” Lance’s mother says frowning “you want us to pretend he was never a part of Voltron?”

 

“It would be best for him,” The doctor said.

 

“No!” Luis said, and Keith nodded “No way! We can’t do that!”

 

Everyone agreed with Luis at first, but as time passed more and more of Lance's family agreed until it was decided. Lance would have a new start they said. Keith left Earth for the Blade of Marmora and he wasn’t there when Lance finally woke up.

 


	20. Communication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I posted two chapters today, I'm sorry but I have seven more to post to get them all posted and I really wanted to share them.

 

Lance awoke gasping. It took him a moment of just staring at the ceiling for his brain to understand what had happened.

 

He remembered! He remembered everything! Or… mostly everything. The return of his memories made the one little empty space more apparent.

 

He remembered knowing a secret, discovering something on Earth and running back to his team begging them to leave but he was completely blank on what had happened in between. He shook his head, it was weird but it’d probably come back eventually. It’s not like his memories had been coming back in chronological order to start with.

 

Now wide awake and a little shaky Lance swung out of bed and grabbed his communicator from where it rested on the bedside table. He opened his bedroom door and tiptoed down the hall quietly as to not wake any of his family.

 

He opened the big back door and stepped out onto the porch.

 

The air was colder than it was in Texas but not unpleasantly so. Lance walked over to the railing of the porch and looked up at the night sky.

 

The moon was bright enough that he didn’t need any light to see, it was nice, honestly. He felt like himself again, except not exactly. More like a new version of himself that he felt more at home as than he ever had before.

 

Lance dialed Keith’s number on his communicator.

 

It rung for a while before Keith picked up, which Lance realized was probably because it was late and Keith was asleep.

 

But Keith answered nonetheless “Lance?” His voice came through the communicator slow and sleepy.

 

“Sorry, did I wake you up?” Lance asked putting his communicator on speaker and lying it on the railing so he could lean back and watch the sky.

 

“Yeah, but it’s alright. Is something wrong?”

 

“No, nothing’s wrong exactly…”

 

“What d'ya mean?” Keith asked his voice rough with grogginess.

 

“My memories came back tonight,”

 

“Your- what? Seriously? Everything?” The sleepiness seemed to immediately bleed out of voice and Lance could hear him shifting around on the other side of the line.

 

“Yeah, well almost everything… there’s still this tiny little spot that’s blank but I bet it’ll come back soon too. But I remember everything else… I remember the first time I saw you!” Lance said giggling “you were a total dork as a pre-teen.”

 

Keith groaned “Gee thanks,”

 

“But also… I remembered some not so great things. I remembered the explosion, how I lost my memories.”

 

“You understand that? What happened? Because I never have.” Keith said quietly.

 

“Yeah, I do. I think it’s probably time to explain that to you.”

 

“If you’re sure, I would really like to know. It’s been confusing the hell out of me for years.”

 

“Yeah…” Lance sighed “So, I guess it started with the prince on Thundeg he told me some stuff about how there’s a price to victory. There’s a natural order to the universe. Pidge had this whole intelligent design speech, but basically, in order to get something, you have to sacrifice something. I figured this out and once I got Pidge to confirm it for me I started trying to work out how we could win the war. I figured out the first part pretty quickly, one of us needed to die. To win we had to get rid of Voltron and to do that for sure, for certain, one of us had to die. It was going to be me. I was going to sacrifice myself.”

 

“Oh my god, Lance—“

 

Lance cut Keith off before he could chew him out “I know, you’re pissed but let me explain everything first.”

 

“Okay…” Keith agreed begrudgingly.

 

“So that was the first thing I figured out. That’s why I lied to you when I said I didn’t love you. I didn’t want to start something when I was basically a dead man walking. I didn’t want to hurt you like that, I understand that I hurt you anyway… but at the time I thought I was doing what was best for you.”

 

“I understand…” Keith said, “I don’t like it but, I do understand.”

 

“I know… I’m sorry.” Lance sighed “But,” he said continuing “I didn’t realize that there was more to be done until Allura was talking to Haggar, I realized there was no redemption for her. Maybe it was wrong for me to kill her, but I knew I had to. It was only once I did that we were able to get back to reality, the universe accepted her sacrifice so then it only needed mine, except something went wrong… I didn’t die, I don’t know why. But Allura did instead…” Lance’s voice cracked.

 

“Lance…” Keith whispered his voice soft and comforting “it wasn’t your fault.”

 

“But it was supposed to be me!”

 

“But it wasn’t.” Keith said firmly “Look if the universe is really this big intelligent balanced thing, then maybe it was out of your hands? It took what it needed, and that just wasn’t you.”

 

“But she deserved better! Allura never got to have a life of her own, it was always about the war for her, she never got to do most of the things she wanted! She was just a kid too! And…” Lance’s outraged voice fell to a whisper “and it’s not fair.”

 

“No, it’s not…” Keith took a deep breath “It’s something we all have to deal with every day, the loss of Allura, the loss of you. It tore us apart. Lance, it’s just with your return that we started to come back together again, not as a team or as Voltron, but as a family. I hate it, I hate that the war took Allura from us. But I’ve had a long time to grieve, longer than you have with losing your memories. I had to come to terms with it a long time ago, Allura is gone. And maybe it’s my fault, I could have been a better leader, it was my duty to protect my team and I failed. Maybe it’s Pidge’s fault, she crashed closest to Blue, maybe if she’d got there fast enough there could have been some chance to keep her with us. Maybe it was Hunk’s fault, maybe if he’d been there for you as a best friend better he could have seen all of it coming and saved you and Allura. Maybe it’s Shiro’s fault if only he’d been there. Or maybe it’s none of our faults. Maybe there’s nothing we could have done!”

 

“…Maybe,” Lance said.

 

Keith spoke quietly, “The only thing you can do is try to move forward, Allura would want you to be happy. That doesn’t mean forgetting her or anything like that, but it means stepping towards happiness because don’t we owe her that much? She lost everything in a seemingly never-ending war, all she ever wanted was to put a stop to it, and we did! Now the best thing we can do is live our peaceful lives because we have the chance to. We can have a family, have jobs we love, grow old. Shit, Shiro is getting married soon! He may not have had that chance if not for Allura.”

 

Lance sniffled wiping a tear from his face “You’re right, I want to live. For real, as myself. Not as some half version who didn’t even remember who he was.”

 

“That sounds like a good idea,”

 

“I want to move to Texas,” Lance said suddenly.

 

“I- what?”

 

“I want to move to Texas, I want to be with you.”

 

“What about your farm?”

 

“I can have a farm in Texas too Keith, it’s great for agriculture there.”

 

“But what happens when I go back to space?”

 

“I’ll be fine in Texas by myself, my sister lives there plus my sister, Pidge, Shiro and Curtis. But also maybe I could… go with you sometimes?”

 

“To space?”

 

“Yes,”

 

There was silence from Keith’s side of the line and after a moment Lance started to backtrack “Except I totally just invited myself to Texas to be with you, and if you don’t want that, it’s totally fine! Like I know it—“

 

“Lance!” Keith said cutting him off mid-rambling “I’d really like that... to be with you. We could get a house together?”

 

“Oh,” Lance said dumbly “Yeah… I want to move in with you, I want to be with you.”

 

“ _Foreve_ r,” Keith whispered so quietly Lance almost missed.

 

“If that’s how long you want me for,” Lance’s voice was quiet as he looked up at the moon glowing brightly in the sky and the stars blinking alongside it.

 

“It is,” Keith said firmly.

 

“Then forever,”

 

Lance could hear Keith’s small smile in his voice as he responded “I love you,”

 

“I love you too,” Lance closed his eyes imagining Keith’s face in his head, a little pang shot through his chest, god it’d only been a week but he missed Keith so much.

 

“I’m coming home tomorrow,” Lance decided at that moment.

 

“To me?” Keith asked like he didn’t dare to hope.

 

“Always to you, you know what they say, home is where the heart is.”

 

Keith laughed “That’s cheesy, how are we this fucking cheesy? I’m cynical Lance, I’m kind of an asshole, but you’ve ruined me. Maybe it’s the whole honeymoon phase thing.”

 

“Nah, I think I’m always going to feel like this for you.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“You fishing for compliments Kogane? Shall I explain in great detail how exactly I feel?”

 

“I mean… if you really want to?” Keith said his voice suddenly shy.

 

“I do,” Lance smiled “So, let’s see. I love you like I think I always have, so intensely like it might just consume me. It’s how I hated you too, with every part of me. But the fact that the hate turned so easily to love, I’m not sure it was ever hate at all. I think I wanted you to notice me, like me, love me, when you didn’t I hated you for it. Truth is, you’re written in my soul Red. I hate that I didn’t see it until it seemed pointless to me. I regret that I’ve had you for so little time when I could have fucking kissed you when I was a teenager instead of fighting, and then we’d have years on us.”

 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed “but we have time. And I’m not going to waste a single moment of it now.”

 

“Me either,” Lance smiled softly.

 

There was a moment of comfortable silence while they just listened to the other’s breathing at ease.

 

“I should probably let you go,” Lance said eventually “It’s late.”

 

“Probably… I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

 

“Tomorrow night,” Lance promised.

 

“Okay, I love you, so much.”

 

“I love you too. A lot.”

 

Lance laughed “I know. Okay, bye.”

 

“Bye,”

 

Lance grabbed his communicator and ended the call with a smile on his face. God, he loved that man.

 

Shivering slightly in the chill air Lance took one last look at the night sky before turning and going back in through the open back door. As he did he came face to face with Veronica who was standing in the dark and looking very guilty.

 

“Ronnie?” Lance said surprised to see her.

 

“Uh, I got up to get water. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I noticed the back door was open and I went to go shut it and I heard you and Keith on a call. Sorry.” She said clearly ashamed.

 

“Oh,” Lance said still slightly surprised “How much did you hear?”

 

“Not a lot… but enough to know that you and Keith are in a relationship.”

 

Lance rubbed the back of his neck “Yeah… we are. I guess I should probably tell the rest of the family tomorrow.”

 

“You’re… going to tell everyone?”

 

“Well yeah, I can’t just move in with Keith and not tell my family.”

 

“You’re really moving in with him, to Texas? Isn’t that a little fast?”

 

Lance snorted “Veronica this has been the slowest, longest thing coming ever. Trust me.”

 

Veronica sighed “Okay, okay. I know you’re still mad at me for lying to you, but I’ve always just wanted you to be happy, you’re my little brother, I love you.”

 

“I love you to Ronnie. Even though you kept the fact that I was a paladin of Voltron from me.”

 

“I know, I know. I suck.”

 

“You do.” Lance agreed.

 

She frowned “I should get you for that, but under these circumstances, I will allow it.”

 


	21. That's Not Love, That's Waiting For a Bomb to Go Off

 

“I’m going back to Texas today,” Lance announced over breakfast the next day.

 

“Wha—“ His mother started to ask but Lance kept talking cutting her off.

 

“Also I’m in a serious relationship with Keith and I’m moving to Texas and we’re going to live together.”

 

“Are you kidding me?” Marco asked his mouth half-open.

 

“Wait,” Lance said putting a hand up “There’s more. I’m also going to be going with Keith to space sometimes because damn, I miss space and there’s still a lot of relief work to be done even this long after the war. It’s important for me to help. Oh, and basically all my memories returned last night. So I’m back baby!”

 

There was a moment of shocked silence that was broken by Luis casually saying: “Cool, will you bring me back a souvenir from space? Also Texas, I like Texas.”

 

Lance laughed “Sure.”

 

“I’ll hold you to that.” Luis threatened.

 

Lance rolled his eyes “I’m sure you will.”

 

\--

 

Unfortunately, it took another hour of explaining things and then explain them again to his family before they finally accepted it. Thankfully, after enough questioning, they seemed to be okay with him and Keith. Though Lance’s parents insisted that Lance had to bring Keith home to the family to be introduced at some point.

 

Lance argued that they’d already met Keith but his mama insisted that it wasn’t “the same! Now we have to meet him as your significant other. Not just a friend.”

 

Despite some resistance, Lance begrudgingly agreed.

 

Now he has packed his bags into the back of his truck and exchanged hugs with his family members.

 

“I’ll come visit again soon Mama,” Lance promised.

 

“You better.” She said sternly.

 

He turned to Luis and he pulled Lance into a tight hug “You can come to visit me and Ronnie in Texas if you like it so much, bring Nadia, Sylvio, and Maria. Make it a family vacation.”

 

Luis laughed easily “Sounds good.”

 

Lance gave his family one last wave before hopping into his truck and starting the engine. He watched his childhood home and waving family members disappear in the rearview mirror and Lance couldn’t help but think that life was finally coming together.

 

\--

 

Lance arrived at Keith’s apartment much earlier than he thought he would, he’d encountered very little traffic in his day-long drive and now it was only eight and Lance was starving. He messaged Keith through his communicator to let him know that Lance would be early but Keith hadn’t replied.

 

Lance opened the front door stepping inside Keith’s warmly lit home. Keith was on the couch with Curtis when Lance walked in, they were debating about some documentary that was on while Shiro tapped away at his laptop not paying much attention. Keith looked over as Lance entered jumping up in surprise.

 

“Lance! You’re back early, I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

 

“There was like no traffic.” Lance shrugged. “I’m gonna put my bags away.” Lance smiled.

 

“Okay,” Keith said returning his smile softly.

 

Lance slipped off his shoes and headed down the hall to drop his stuff in Keith's closet then joined him back in the living room.

 

“We’ve got to get the rest of your stuff,” Keith said as Lance joined everybody in the living room.

 

“Yeah, I need to put my farm up for sale too, though I bet Chris the guy who co-owns and runs it with me would happy to take it from me. He’s always been a dick about running it _his way_.” Lance rolled his eyes.

 

“You’re moving Lance?” Curtis asked.

 

“Yeah,” Lance shrugged “time for a change, y’know?”

 

“Wow,” Curtis said, “where are you moving to?”

 

“Here,” Lance said easily.

 

“Oh,” Shiro said surprised “what makes you want to move to Texas?”

 

Lance shrugged “I like Texas and Keith. Among other things.”

 

Keith snorted “Good to know you like me.”

 

“It’s a lot more than like, babe.” Lance winked.

 

Curtis laughed “So y’all are moving in together? Not in this dump, right?”

 

“Nah,” Keith said, “We’ll get a house.”

 

“With a pool,” Lance added.

 

Keith’s nose crinkled adorably in distaste “we don’t need a pool.”

 

“Yes, we do. If we’re living in the middle of Texas.”

 

Keith shrugged “I don’t know where you’re planning to put a pool on a farm…”

 

“I’ll find a place.”

 

“Excuse me, but what?” Shiro asked his expression the perfect picture of utter confusion.

 

“Keith and Lance are getting a pool Takashi, it’s not that difficult to comprehend.”

 

“No b-but, Keith and Lance? You guys are like…”

 

“Dating?” Curtis offered.

 

“Together?” Keith added.

 

“In love,” Lance smiled brightly.

 

Shiro was silent for a moment processing “Okay…” he rubbed the bridge of his nose exhausted “you guys totally ganged up on me. Was this planned?”

 

“No,” Keith said “it just kind of happened. I did mean to tell you soon though, so I suppose it all works out.”

 

Shiro shook his head “Okay, I’m happy for you guys, really.”

 

“But?” Keith said.

 

“But… you do seem to be moving pretty fast. How long have you guys been dating, a little over a week?”

 

“Yes,” Keith said “I know you see it as risky and reckless, but you forget, Lance and I were the red paladins. We do reckless well. Plus, for us this is anything but fast, we’ve been wanting this for _years,_ Shiro. We may be moving fast, but we’re not stupid, this means so much to both of us. And you know what? Even if we did fuck it all up I’d be worth it, because I haven’t felt this happy in a very long time. Remember what you told me when I was little? ‘I can’t go through every relationship waiting for it to end, that’s not love, or family, or friendship, that’s waiting for a bomb to go off.’ Well, I’m taking your advice.”

 

Shiro laughed softly at that “Damn, using my own advice against me. That’s good.”

 

“So?” Keith asked quietly.

 

“So, you don’t need my blessing to be with Lance but… you have it. I just want you to be happy. You’re my family bud, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that family can disappear pretty quickly. I was just so afraid of you getting hurt that I didn’t realize I was hurting you in the process.”

 

At Shiro’s words, Keith threw himself across the room and into his brother’s arms. Shiro paused for a moment clearly surprised by Keith’s reaction before wrapping his arms around his baby brother and holding him tight.

 

“I love you, Keith,” He murmured.

 

“I love you too,” Keith whispered back.

 

\--

 

 

Shiro, Curtis, Lance, and Keith hung out for the rest of the evening not leaving until well after midnight, something in Keith felt like it had been put right into place. He had his family and the love of his life all together, now all he needed was Pidge and Hunk to make it complete. Well, and of course Coran too. Though the thing that would make it most perfect would be Allura.

 

Near the end, Keith had kept his distance from her due to her relationship with Lance. But before that, they had actually become quite close friends.

 

Beneath all her properness and everything, she was actually really funny and sarcastic. She and Keith used to spend hours making fun of the Altean equivalents of chick-flicks that Lance loved so much.

 

Keith had a very fond memory of them sitting down to watch one of the movies while Allura taught him how to braid his hair to keep it out of his face while he fought. They’d also had some intense nights of training, Allura was the only person who could keep up with him, even more so than Shiro. She managed to whoop his ass on more than one occasion.

 

So as hard as Keith had always found it to admit to loving anyone at the time, he had loved Allura, loved her so, so, much in a way he hadn’t understood he could for someone who was so different from himself. Despite their rocky times like when Allura first found out that Keith was part Galra, she had turned out to be an amazing friend. Keith knew she’d been hurt when Keith had pulled away from her when she and Lance began their relationship. But Allura had given him space knowing him well enough to know that he needed to come to her. Except she’d died before Keith ever had the chance to talk to her, leaving a thousand words unsaid.

 

These thoughts are what led to Lance finding Keith crying curled in a ball on his bed after Shiro and Curtis had left and Keith and Lance were getting ready to go to sleep.

 

“Hey,” Lance said softly crawling over to Keith “What’s wrong baby?”

 

Keith tried to wipe the tears from his face but it only resulted in him crying harder, so he just shook his head at Lance unable to use words to convey what he was feeling.

 

Lance, understanding that Keith was in no position to talk asked him “Is it okay if I touch you?”

 

Keith nodded and Lance quickly moved closer pulling Keith into his arms. He rubbed circles on Keith’s back as he cried singing some sort of lullaby in Spanish under his breath. Eventually, Keith’s sobs faded to hiccups and he went loose in Lance’s arms the tension leaving with the tears. He felt weak and cried out.

 

“What happened baby?” Lance asked once Keith tears had stopped.

 

“Started thinking ‘bout Allura. I try not to think about her too much because it hurts and I know she would want me to be happy but all I feel is hopeless when I think about the fact that she’s not here. Truth is, I can move forward with my life as much as I want but I’m never going to stop missing her. There’s always going to be that space in our family where she should be. I’m probably always going to cry sometimes because I just want her here.”

 

“Me too Keith, me too. But she is here, isn’t she? Not as much as I want her to be, but she’s in our hearts and everything the Voltron does.”

 

“We always leave a space for her,” Keith sniffled “like if she came back right now she could just step right back into our family like she never left.”

 

“Yeah,” Lance said exactly “It’s so hard to lose her. And it’s all so new for me, so I get what you’re feeling. But we’re gonna be alright, Keith.

 

“Yeah, we will. But it’d be better if she was here with us.”

 

“It would,” Lance agreed tenderly.

 

“I feel like the universe made a mistake.” Keith expressed quietly “She didn’t deserve to be the sacrifice that’s not right. None of us should have had to be.”

 

“No, you’re right. But at the end of the day, we’re just people aren’t we? We can’t choose a few people over the fate of the universe, as much as I want to. As much as I wish we could have. If Allura knew how to end the war she would have offered herself as the sacrifice in an instant. So I think she’d be happy, knowing she died to save the universe.“

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh y'all are not gonna be ready for the next chapter... I'm so excited you guys are gonna die.


	22. Roadtrip

Okay, so Allura was having a rough day. 

It started off by being blown up, and of course, getting blown up is never fun. In fact, she was really starting to despise it at this point. But it was better than sitting in a prison cell she supposed. 

Now, of course, on top of being blown up before she even got a chance to eat breakfast, she was being shot at. These GG soldiers just never stopped coming.

“Take out the guys with the mega-blasters!” Marcus shouted over the gunfire “I’ll cover you! Once they’re down we can push towards the doors!”

Not bothering to try and shout back she gave Marcus a thumbs up, which was a handy human gesture that she’d been taught by her paladins, before sneaking across the docking bay towards the soldiers with the mega-blasters. 

It was at times like this that she truly missed her bayard, as she slipped her blaster into her holster and unsheathed the long knife from its place on her thigh. 

The two soldiers were so focused on Marcus who was making quite a scene-setting things on fire and blasting up a storm that they didn’t even see Allura coming. She dispatched them easily with a slit across one’s throat and then the others’. 

She looked back over to Marcus who had managed to nearly set the entire place on fire.

He had a weird thing for fire, something about almost dying in one? 

Who knew, it wasn’t her place to press him about it. She’d long ago accepted that Marcus liked to keep his past private and that was okay with her, she loved him and she knew that he’d open up to her when he was ready. She found he was quite similar to Keith in that way.

Allura quickly made her way back over to where Marcus was crouched avoiding the heavy fire. 

“Okay, let’s make a break for it!”

Allura nodded readying her gun in one hand and her knife in the other “Let’s.”

Marcus held his hands up counting down from three, as he lowered his last finger they sprung up from where they were hiding and charged the enemy. She lost count of time as they pushed their way forward towards the doors. It could have been minutes or hours but eventually, they made it. Battered and breathing heavily they made it through the doors, Allura had been hit on the shoulder but it was only a graze. 

As they moved out of the main docking bay and into the more private area off of it they encountered fewer soldiers. They’d already fought through the thickest of them, but Allura knew that there were surely more not far behind.

“Quickly,” she urged.

Marcus nodded and they sprinted across the smaller docking bay, taking out any soldiers who got in their way. In a matter of seconds, they had reached the other side where a small ship was docked. They forced their way inside and Allura started the engine of the ship readying it to leave. Marcus strapped himself in knowing better than to try and mess with the controls. As someone from Earth he still knew very little about piloting and though Allura wanted to teach them, being on the run gave them very little time. 

Allura piloted the ship into the air and blasted a hole in the side of the ship they were docked in. She didn’t have time to wait for the bay doors to open. She thrust the ship forward and they were out in space in a matter of seconds. Shots were fired at them as they departed but it was useless, they were already too far away for the GG to catch up. 

Allura let out a sigh of relief the tension bleeding from her shoulders as the GG ship disappeared from view. 

“That was a close one,” She remarked.

“No fucking kidding,” Marcus said his voice rough and raspy.

She might have been offended if she wasn’t used to his tone, rough seemed to be his default. Though Allura found at this point she didn’t mind so much.

“So,” Allura said “We’re completely off course. If we keep going at this rate it’ll be another few years before we reach our destination. New Altea is galaxies away from the Sacagave System.”

“It won’t take years.” His voice was firm “As long as we avoid being running into the GG again then we’ll make it.”

“Don’t be foolish Marcus, it’s very unlikely that we won’t run into them. They’re quite set on making us prisoners again.”

“True,” Marcus shrugged.

Allura sighed “Maybe we should change our destination, I’m starting to fear that New Altea is simply too far. As much as I have dreamed of seeing my home again and Coran… I fear I am being slightly selfish. The chances of us making it there at this point are slim.”

“But… New Altea has been our goal for years. We’ll be safe there, you swore it.”

“Yes, Marcus we would be safe there. But it’s been years! We might never make it there, and I am not fucking dying now. Not after everything!”

Marcus’s eyes widened is surprise, Allura had picked up more than a few human curse words but she rarely used them. “Allura,” He said his voice softening slightly “then where do you propose we go?” 

Allura turned to watch the infinite expanse of space in front of them “Earth,” she breathed.

“Uh… what?”

“Earth.” She repeated louder and more firmly.

“Are you crazy? That’s the last place we want to go to escape the GG!”

“Maybe it’s time we stopped trying to escape we can fight!”

“How? All these years we’ve just barely survived you and me. We can’t fight them.”

“We could if we had help!”

“Help from who?”

“My paladins!”

“Voltron is gone Allura.”

“But my paladins aren’t!” Her expression turned sad and heavy “Well… most of them.”

Being on a prisoner for years and then being on the run all this time it was hard for Allura to get news. She managed by connecting to the Galactic Net and reading up on the news whenever they were somewhere with a connection, as well as hacking into local communications and listening to the chatter.

Because of this, she’d heard that Keith was working for the Blade of Marmora, Shiro was on Earth, Coran had spent the last few years rebuilding the Altean civilization on New Altea and that Lance… was dead.

It was the first time she’d been able to connect to the Galactic Net since escaping from the GG with Marcus and she’d immediately done a search on Voltron.

She’d found new articles on Shiro, Keith, and Coran telling her what they had been doing. It had taken a lot more digging to find anything else about the rest of her paladins, but when she did she found that Pidge and Hunk’s whereabouts were listed as unknown. She was surprised to find herself listed as deceased.

But the worse part was seeing Lance declared deceased also.

She’d watched him pilot right into that crack in reality, she knew the chances of his surviving were low but still she’d held onto hope for all those years. He was Lance. He one of the strongest people Allura had ever known and, she’d seen him escape death time and time again. 

But if there was one thing Allura knew it was that a person could only escape so many times before it caught up with you. Whether that be death or the GG. 

And she was not going to let herself become a prisoner again. 

“Okay,” Marcus said rubbing his temple “so what, you want to go to Earth to put your team back together and fight against the GG?”

“Yes,” She said firmly.

“You know how unlikely that is to work?”

“Yes…” 

He sighed “What the hell, I don’t want to die a man on the run.”

She laughed jumping up to throw her arms around “That’s the spirit! Let’s go to Earth!” 

He cast her one of his rare soft smiled “let’s go to Earth,” He repeated quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: writes paragraphs mourning Allura and putting my characters through grief knowing full well I never planned on her actually being dead.
> 
> also me: What? this is crazy! Who would have thought that such a thing would happen? Allura's alive! 
> 
>  
> 
> In all realness, I wrote this chapter and then cut it because I wasn't sure if this was the way I wanted to reveal Allura, but I wound up putting it back in. Idk I liked it but a part of me felt like I could have made it a bigger suprise? Idk tell me what you guys think, I'm still young and always looking for critique on my writing.


	23. Power Vacuum

So, Lance was selling his farm to Chris. He admittedly didn’t seem sad to see Lance go. 

Now Lance just needed to pack the rest of his things and get them over to Texas as well as start house hunting with Keith. They were excited and after Shiro’s initial shock at the situation he’d jumped right into trying to help them find a place. He was sending Keith messages every day filled with possible properties.

Honestly, Keith was a little fed up.

“I’m going to murder my brother.” Keith sighed over breakfast one morning. 

“Aw, don’t do that. He’s getting married soon.”

Keith groaned annoyed “I suppose I’ll try to refrain.”

“You do that,” 

“So, besides that fact that Shiro’s annoying. He also told me that Coran is arriving from New Altea tonight.”

“Seriously? Oh my god! That’s great, but short warning though.”

Keith shrugged “It’s Coran, what else do you expect. The wedding is in a week though, so it’s about time he showed up.” 

“Wow,” I can’t believe it’s so close.”

“Yeah, me either. It’s crazy. I feel like Curtis and Shiro just got engaged like yesterday.”

“Time passes fast.” Lance smiled.

“Sure does,” Keith agreed.

His communicator beeped and Keith picked it up from the table checking his message.

“Oh, Shiro wants everyone to come over and have dinner tonight to welcome Coran, just like we did for Hunk.”

“Aw, that sounds great. I’ve missed Coran.”

“Well, you’re in luck, because I guess we’re seeing him again tonight.” 

\--

Keith and Lance showed up early to help with dinner, but it turned out their help wasn’t needed because Hunk had shown up even earlier and completely taken over the kitchen only allowing Curtis to help.

So, they were left to their own devices while Shiro went to go pick up Coran. Keith and Lance hung out in the living room with Pidge, who for some reason had been at Shiro and Curtis’s place since this morning taking over their Galactic Net connection which she insisted was better than the one at her place.

“She’s totally doing something illegal and doesn’t want it tracked to her place.” Curtis had said earlier in a casual way that only someone who had extensive experience dealing with Pidge could. “I hope she knows that if the government shows up I’m not protecting her. She is going under that fucking bus.”

Lance had long ago decided that he really liked Curtis, but this interaction cemented it even more.

Lance turned to Keith “Curtis is too good for Shiro,”

Keith snorted “Oh definitely.”

“One-hundred percent,” Pidge said from the other side of the room as she typed furiously away at her laptop.

Before they could make fun of Shiro anymore the door opened and Shiro and Coran’s arrival was immediately announced by the Altean’s loud chattering.

“-and then I told her, ‘no, sweet child, we do not eat Snorfls!’ But did she listen? No! I’d forgotten what a handful children could be!”

“Coran!” Pidge said jumping up as he and Shiro entered. 

“Pidge, my favorite green paladin.” Coran greeted cutting his story short as Pidge approached him. He hugged her tightly before letting go and turning to everyone else.

As his eyes fell on Lance he was struck speechless for what may have been the first time.

“Lance,” he said softly “Now I must say, I knew you were back, Shiro told me that much. But knowing and seeing you are two entirely different things I think. It is wonderful to have you back.”

“It’s great to be back,” Lance smiled.

Coran engulfed Lance in a big hug and Lance’s smile grew. Finally, they were all back together, well, as much as they could be without Allura.

Coran released Lance looking a little teary-eyed as Hunk and Curtis entered the living room from the kitchen. 

They all exchanged hugs, Coran even hugged Curtis who he didn’t actually know.

“It’s a pleasure!” Coran said happily “I am ecstatic Shiro is marrying you, he deserves nothing less than happiness for the rest of his life, don’t you think?”

 Curtis smiled in a rare show of soft affection “Yeah, he really does.”

\--

Dinner was of course, delicious, but that was to be expected, Hunk was an incredible cook. 

After all the dishes were away they retired to the living room easily draping themselves on the couch and chairs, and in Pidge’s case the floor because for some reason she seemed to have something against sitting in things that were made to be sat on. 

Keith leaned into Lance resting his head on his shoulder as they listened to Coran tell colorful stories of his time and adventures on New Altea.

Lance smiled down at his boyfriend dropping a soft kiss on Keith’s forehead.

Everything seemed like a dream, it was still and soft and practically perfect. Lance thought at that moment that things were all falling into place, maybe it was time for everyone’s happily ever after?

In retrospect thinking those types of things were never a good idea, it was just tempting fate really.

Because at that exact moment the front door was kicked open and a flood of armored Garrison soldiers flooded in. They all jumped at the sudden intrusion, reaching for weapons that they didn’t have.

“Galaxy Garrison!” An officer yelled roughly “Lance Mclain you’re under arrest for conspiracy against the government!”

“What?” Lance said in shock “I- I didn’t do anything!”

“Put your hands up and surrender to be taken in by authorities!” The officer barked.

“No way, you can’t arrest me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“We will take you by force if we need to Mclain.”

Keith stepped in front of Lance, Marmora blade glowing in his hand.

“You’re not going to fucking touch him,” Keith growled.

Pidge stepped forward too “You’ll have to get through us!”

The rest of team Voltron stepped up ready for a fight.

The officer cocked his head “By force it is then,” He said casually.

The soldiers moved all at once seemingly responding to an order Lance couldn’t hear, then suddenly there was a bang, a bright light, and then blackness…

\--

Lance woke to a pounding headache. 

As his eyes opened he blinked a few times trying to clear his vision only to realize that it wasn’t his vision that was dark but his surroundings. 

Wherever he was it was pitch black. 

“Is anyone here?” He whispered into the dark but there was no reply, it seemed that Lance was alone 

Lance could feel handcuffs on his wrists and restraints attached to his ankles as well. Reaching down he followed the chain on his ankles to where they were attached to a bolt in the wall. The wall itself was rough and cold, probably concrete.

None of this helped Lance at all, it didn’t seem like he was going anywhere.

He sighed leaning back against the wall resigned to waiting for whenever his captors decided to show up.

For when  _ the Garrison _  decided to show up. 

But why?

Lance had thought that there was something that wasn’t right with them, they’d wanted to prevent him from getting his memories back, that much seemed clear. But why would they want that? He had remembered a lot, but none of it seemed like something the Garrison would go to such great lengths to take from Lance.

Except… he hadn’t remembered everything. There was still that one little gap in his mind.

Lance straightened up suddenly, he needed to remember. He needed to trigger it somehow. 

But, that was easier said than done, there were none of his old things or photos here to help him trigger. He sifted through his mind trying to find some idea for how to trigger the memory when suddenly it came to him. He might not have remembered the memory itself but he remembered afterward, the long slash across his arm.

Lance reached up the best he could with his wrists handcuffed, touching the raised scar on his arm.

He closed his eyes trying to remember it happening, the burn of a blade as it cut his skin.

An image flashed in his mind, a dusty dim-lit room. Lance running, fleeing, a woman reaching out, trying to stop him but only managing to inflict a long slash. Blood dripped down Lance’s fingers spotting the floor red, but he didn’t pause. He ran. 

In the present Lance was gasping, he twisted his eyes closed tighter and held that little sliver of memory and  _ pushed. _  He pushed until it gave away and Lance lost himself to the past.

\--

Lance hadn’t meant to wander away from Pidge. He knew they had tasks to complete and that Pidge would be angry at him for slipping away, but something wasn’t right.

It had taken a little while for Lance to notice, but once he had he couldn’t seem to lower his guard.

The Garrison wasn’t their enemy, so why were they acting like they were?

Lance had been feelings eyes on him, shifty gazes, guards carrying weapons that didn’t need to be out of their holsters inside the safety of the Garrison base. 

But the guards and soldiers seemed to be on high alert. 

It wasn’t right.

So that was what led Lance to sneaking away from Pidge to follow two serious-looking officers.

He followed them down the hall for a while, after fifteen minutes of them just walking down the never-ending hallway, not saying a word Lance was beginning to think that maybe he was just being paranoid.

That was when the officers stopped suddenly in front of a nondescript door at the end of the hallway. They turned to check their surroundings and Lance quickly ducked into an open room. He peered into the hallway but the officers seemed not to have seen him, they pulled out key cards unlocking the door and stepped inside the room, letting the door begin to swing shut behind them.

Lance moved quickly, barely managing to catch the door before it shut. He slipped inside noiselessly.

Behind the door he was met by another hallway, this one, however, was concrete and dark, clearly not meant to be seen by most.

The two officers had disappeared into the dark hallway and Lance could no longer make them out in the shadows. That was fine however because it seemed like there was only one way to go: down the creepy dark hallway, yippee! 

Lance wasn’t sure how long he walked but the hallway seemed to stretch on forever steadily going down until Lance was sure he was now deep under the Garrison. Eventually, the hallway opened up into a big room, there were big industrial lights, hanging from the ceiling and casting a yellow light over everything, but they did little to combat the deep shadows. 

However, this worked in Lance’s favor he crept to a small dark corner of the room crouching down behind a pile of crates.

In the middle of the room there was a large table, the two officers he’d followed were seated there as well as a bunch of other people Lance didn’t recognize. Stationed around the room were armored guards.

“We have a lot of business to discuss,” A woman at the head of the table said easily. 

She didn’t seem particularly evil, she seemed more like a typical sleek politician. But something in her voice put Lance on edge, her ease felt manufactured.

“Voltron is here,” One of the officers who had led Lance here said. “I saw the red and green paladin, this could be our chance to take them out.”

The woman sighed “What do I have to do to get it through your thick skulls? We cannot eliminate Voltron until they take care of the Galra. Unless you’d like to go head-to-head with the Galra yourself?”

 

“Uh, no ma’am.” The officer answered.

“That’s what I thought.” 

Lance took a step backward, he needed to get out of here. As he went to make a break for it he knocked into the piled-up crates and everyone’s heads snapped to where Lance was hidden.

“Someone’s here.” The woman said sharply standing from her seat. “Get them.”

The guards moved quickly drawing their weapons. 

Lance knew he wouldn’t make it long in a fight, he’d left his Bayard back on the Atlas, nobody had thought there would be any need for weapons, the Garrison was their ally, or so they’d thought.

Lance made a break for it.

“It’s the red paladin!” Somebody yelled.

“Don’t let him get away!” The woman roared. 

The guards fought determinedly, but compared to Lance’s years in space as a paladin, their training was clumsy. Basic military moves that Lance had learned as a cadet.

He took them down easily, unfortunately, he quickly learned that the guards were the least of a threat here. The officers seemed to be trained past the generic training most soldiers received and without a weapon it wasn’t long before Lance wasn’t faring well. 

He lunged towards one of the fallen guards grabbing their blaster. With a gun in his hand, he felt much more at ease, aiming at the officers. He took down one after another, watching them fall like dominos. 

“Kill him!” The woman yelled drawing a knife.

She moved quickly avoiding the fire from Lance. As she got closer he fell back towards the hallway shooting as he went to keep them at bay, but somehow the woman kept advancing, she seemed to have some kind of clear armor over her skin that kept her from being harmed by Lance’s shots. 

Lance cursed as she came even closer only an arm’s length away. She lunged knife in hand landing a long slash on his arm.

He hissed in pain but held his composure stepping back into the hallway leaving the woman in the room in front of him.

She moved to step forward but Lance’s battle-trained mind was ahead of her, before he even processed what he was doing he shot the ceiling where the hallway opened up into the room.

The woman yelled falling backward. There was a loud roar of impact as huge chunks of the ceiling fell blocking her in.

Lance stumbled back coughing wiping the dust from his eyes. He dropped the gun and took off down the hallway sprinting toward freedom.

They needed to get the hell out of the Garrison.

\--

Lance’s eyes flew open. 

Dear god, that’s why the Garrison had been so keen to keep his memories from him, they’d intended to  _ eliminate  _ Voltron. 

 

And hadn’t they?

Voltron was in ruins, Allura was dead Lance had been off on his farm with no idea who he was. Keith was rarely on Earth, Shiro was blindly loyal to the Garrison, Pidge was completely immersed in her work, Hunk was floating around in space, though nobody had really known where and Coran was completely devoted to New Altea.

They were disbanded, in shambles. The Galra was gone, and with them, the universe was left with an  _ opportunity _ . 

Since the war ended the Blade of Marmora had been fighting to keep anyone from taking that space, from trying to become the next empire. But they’d been working with the Garrison to do so…

But Lance had a bad feeling that the Garrison was the very biggest threat to filling that power vacuum. 


	24. bang

Keith was losing his mind. 

 

He’d woken in the dark and immediately had gotten to work on breaking out of his handcuffs. He’d dislocated his thumb to get out but it’d been hours now and he couldn’t get the cuffs off his ankles.

 

By the time the door to Keith’s cell opened his fingers were sore and swollen from fumbling with the cuffs. 

 

Keith threw his arms up the shield his eyes as the door opened in the cell was suddenly flooded with light.

 

“Ah, good. You’ve gotten out of your handcuffs, you have a reputation as quite a skilled man, I’m glad to see you’ve lived up to it.”

 

Keith blinked, thanks to his Galra heritage his eyes only took a moment to adjust to the light. Once they did he was met with a man in a stiffly ironed uniform accompanied by guards in the same dark full body armor as the ones who had taken them at Shiro’s house. 

 

“Who are you?” Keith asked angrily.

 

“Admiral Collins,” The man said easily, casually motioning for the guards to come forward.

 

The guards roughly pulled Keith’s hands behind his back refastening the handcuffs. They led him out of the cell, one guard holding each of his arms and two behind him, weapons raised. 

 

Keith admittedly felt proud of this, they were wary of him.

 

“Where are my friends?”

 

“Oh don’t worry, you’re going to see them, and for their sake, it’s in your best interest to cooperate. I have no problem with taking a finger or two from your red paladin, he’s given us enough trouble, I’d be delighted to do so actually.”

 

“You’re not going to fucking touch him,” Keith growled.

 

“As long as you cooperate I have no reason to.”

 

Keith swallowed his angry remarks for Lance’s sake and let himself be led down the narrow cell block where his cell resided.

 

Keith was brought to a large private room, it was all white and sterile looking with a white desk to one side and eight chairs lined up in front of it. 

 

The rest of Keith’s team and Curtis were already sitting in front of the desk, handcuffed to their chairs. 

 

Hunk was struggling against his restraints like he could break them by sheer strength, Pidge was fidgeting her eyes darting around the room analyzing the situation. Shiro and Curtis’s gazes were locked in some silent exchange, Shiro looked shaken and Curtis had a large purple and red bruise over his left eye. Coran looked slightly scared but he sat tall his chest puffed out. 

 

Lance sat casually in his chair like he wasn’t handcuffed there but instead had chosen to sit of his own accord. He didn’t look hurt, in fact, he looked perfectly fine. Lance didn’t look shaken or uneasy like everyone else. He seemed like he didn’t mind being in this situation at all, his eyes were fixed on the empty white desk like he was waiting for something.

 

As the guards shoved Keith into the last empty seat the team’s eyes turned towards him, everyone except for Lance who kept his gaze fixed in front of him.

 

As Keith was cuffed to the chair Admiral Collins leaned forward “You break out of those cuffs again and I’ll cut off your hands altogether.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes, what was it with this guy and cutting off limbs? “Funny, then I guess I’d just need to get a little creative with how I kill you, trust me, I don’t need my hands to do it.” 

 

Collin drew in an angry breath but didn’t comment. A small smile twitched on Lance’s lips at Keith's remark. 

 

A white door hidden behind the desk opened with a hiss and a woman stepped in, Lance straightened up as she did an expression passing over his face so quickly that before Keith could begin to understand it, Lance’s face was neutral again.

 

“The former paladins of Voltron…” she smiled slyly “and friends I see.” She said her gaze pausing for a moment on Curtis before continuing and stopping on Lance.

 

“Lance Mclain…” She said stepping forward.

 

“It’s you, from that meeting,” Lance replied cocking his head.

 

“Ah, so you remember me then?”

 

“Yes,”

 

“How is that so?”

 

“I dunno, you failed?”

 

The woman’s lips tightened.

 

“You did erase my memories, correct? Did I ever even have brain damage or did you just have your doctors mess with my head?” Lance asked raising a single eyebrow

 

“A little bit of both,” She shrugged regaining her easy composure “you did have brain damage that would have resulted in memory loss, we just… made it more  _permanent_ , and a little bit larger than it would have been otherwise, so we could erase all your time in Voltron and eliminate you as a threat. It’s funny really, how easy it was to crumble Voltron after we took care of you.”

 

Lance chuckled “But you fucked up,” He said raising an eyebrow “I remember everything. I even remember what I overheard during your little secret meeting. Guess it wasn’t so permanent after all.”

 

“No,” The woman frowned “that shouldn’t have happened, you regaining your memories was supposed to be impossible, so it happening has been an  _unforeseen_  factor. Nonetheless, it’s nothing a little bit of clean up can’t fix.”

 

“Are you going to kill us?” Lance asked.

 

“Oh yes,” she said quickly “we have certainly learned our lesson about keeping high-risk prisoners alive. I can’t have another breakout on my hands, the Runaways have given more us more than enough trouble.”

 

“Who are you even?” Pidge spat stepping into the conversation with fury in her voice.

 

“Oh dear, I forgot to introduce myself, where are my manners?” She smiled in a way that would have been friendly if she hadn’t just said she was going to kill them “I’m Atropos Arcana, I run the Galaxy Garrison.” 

 

“But I’ve never heard of you,” Shiro said, “and I work for the Garrison.”

 

“Oh yes, well there are two sides to the Galaxy Garrison this base here at ground level staffed by men and women who have no real idea who they’re working for. Then there’s the part where everything  _real_ happens. We knew about the Galra long before any of you did, we’ve known about all the life in the universe for hundreds of years. While the idiots up above ground did small-minded things like sending humans to the moon, we’ve been preparing to take over the universe. To put humanity at its rightful place, on the very top.” 

 

“Huh,” Keith said, “So the government really was covering up the existence of aliens." he shook his head

 

“For as long as we could, yes.” Arcana shrugged “But then those pesky Galra got even peskier and their existence was revealed to the general public. But it all worked out in our favor, we got Voltron to defeat the Galra and we were finally able to openly join the fight against them.”

 

“So… you want to take the Galra’s place and rule the universe?” Hunk asked clearly perplexed by this idea.

 

“Yes, and once you’re all dead we can put all our efforts into destroying the Runaways, then nothing will stand in our way. And the best part, nobody will even know what’s coming until we’re already in control.” 

 

“You’re insane,” Keith said darkly.

 

 “Aren’t we all?” Arcana smiled wickedly “Now, as lovely as this conversation has been, I think it’s time to end this, don’t you?”

 

She turned to her guards “Kill them.”

 

They stepped forward each soldier taking standing beside a chair and raising their guns. Keith tensed as he felt the cold barrel of the blaster pushed against his skull.

 

It was then when he realized that there was a very slim chance of them not dying here, slim meaning none. 

 

There was no way out of this, they were cuffed, and weaponless. Even if Keith did manage to break out of his restraints and was able to take down the guards in the room as well as Collins and Arcana, he didn’t even know where they were being held to start with, the Garrison maybe? But even if they were still in Texas and they were able to find safety after escaping there’s no way they could fight their way through the entire Garrison.

 

Everyone else seemed to realize the same thing because Curtis and Shiro turned towards each other holding each other’s gazes like nothing else mattered, Shiro then turned to Keith, giving him a soft smile before closing his eyes “There are no people I’d rather die with,” Shiro said softly.

 

“Me either,” Lance whispered before his eyes flicked to Keith’s “I love you Red.”

 

“I love you too,” Keith said hoarsely. 

 

Arcana rolled her eyes “How touching,” she motioned to the guards “Now shoot them.”

 

Keith closed his eyes tears rolling down his cheeks. 

 

_BANG_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tempted to wait a month to post the next chapter just to fuck with y'all :) :) :)


	25. Reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry y'all, I wasn't actually going to wait a month to post this chapter, but I'm glad to see it doesn't take much for you to turn on me. 
> 
> ANyway, enjoy this chapter, there's only two left after this.

 

Lance was sure he was dead, he was definitely supposed to be. 

Except nothing hurt, and Lance had died before so he could safely say the dying hurt like a bitch.

He opened his eyes. Dead people can’t open their eyes so Lance decided that he probably wasn’t dead. The room was filled with smoke and Lance couldn’t make much out except a giant burning hole where the door had previously been and the shadows of figures moving in the smoke. There was a scream as a guard was blasted backward falling at Lance’s feet. 

Lance leaned forward trying to get the blaster from the dead guard’s hands, but being handcuffed to a chair made his movements slightly limited and unfortunately, he didn’t know Keith’s little trick to get his hands out.

Though Lance didn’t have to struggle long. A man emerged from the smoke, Lance didn’t know who he was but he didn’t look like the Garrison type, he wore a beat-up leather jacket and he had on a weird dark helmet obscuring his face. Something about him was weirdly familiar.

The man didn’t say anything but he leaned over Lance using a weird laser kind of knife almost like a lightsaber he cut through Lance’s cuffs like butter. 

“C’mon,” the man said, he had some sort of accent but Lance couldn't decipher it through the robotic sound his voice made as it was filtered through the helmet “we gotta get out of here.” 

“My friends,” Lance said grabbing the blaster from the dead guard “we have to save them.” 

“I already got ‘em.” The man said roughly, freed one kid and she was helping the others. Go towards the door. They’re out there waiting for us.”

Lance followed the man to the burning hole in the wall where the door used to be, careful not to trip over any debris or bodies in the smoke-filled room, he could barely see anything.

He did, however, catch a flicker of movement out of the corner, Lance turned and shot barely pausing to think, he hit his target in the middle of the head. Arcana crumbled on the floor dead, it all happened in a matter of seconds. 

Honestly, Lance felt a little sad that after everything it was so easy to kill her. She’d had her grand speech and years of planning to take over the universe, yet, all it took was one shot to the head, and she was gone. It seemed a bit of a shame really.

“You’re a good shot,” the man who has saved Lance said, “keep that gun ready.” 

Lance nodded and followed him outside where his friends were gathered. Hunk was shooting with a stolen gun keeping Garrison soldiers at bay as best he could, Keith had a knife and he was quickly dispatching anyone that managed to make it past Hunk’s shooting.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” Lance yelled over the noise as he joined his team. 

Keith turned his attention from the fighting and Shiro stepped in taking his place so Keith could move towards Lance.

“Thank god,” he breathed wasting only a second to give Lance’s hand a soft squeeze.

“So what do we do Team Leader?”

“We have to push forward, make them retreat a little, just to give us enough space to get out of here.”

“My partner is waiting for us,” The man said, “I can get her in here to help clear a path from the outside.”

“Yes, do that,” Keith said his gaze focused on the fight ahead of them, he didn’t even look over at the man too fixated on coming up with his plan. 

 The man put a hand to his ear “Hey Lu,” he said.

There was a moments pause while he listened to the voice on the other side of his comms “Yeah,” he said, “I need you to get in here and help us clear an exit.”

 “Well I don’t fucking know,” He said answering whatever question his partner had asked “I’ve got eight people, none of them are fatally wounded. They might be though if you don’t hurry up.” 

The man chuckled amused by whatever his partner said “Yeah, yeah, be careful, kick these GG soldier’s asses. Shouldn’t have picked on the Runaways eh?” 

The man lowered his hand from his ear the conversation seemingly over. 

“You’re the Runaways?” Pidge asked. “That lady, Arcana or whatever, mentioned you guys.”

“Yeah, we escaped GG captivity a few years back, been on the run ever since. Hence the name.”

“Okay, that’s cool I guess.” Pidge shrugged.

“C’mon,” Keith said “Let’s push forward, Shiro you’re with me in the front, Pidge stay with the new guy and protect our shooters. Hunk, Lance you know the drill, cover us, don’t let anything break our lines. Coran, you stay with Curtis, your priority is to keep him safe. He’s not trained for combat like this and he’s got a wedding in a week.”

Shiro relaxed slightly as Curtis was placed under Coran’s protection, Shiro would fight a lot better knowing his fiancée was safe.

“Let’s go,” Keith motioned. 

They fell into formation and started to push through the Garrison forces with the man whose name Lance still didn’t know barking out directions to get to the exit. 

Eventually, they reached a part of the building that was empty of any fighting soldiers, there were however many lying dead and unconscious on the ground. 

“This is probably where my partner is.” The man said.

Sure enough, the doors in front of them burst open and a woman came strolling in, she wore the same dark helmet her partner did which covered her face and a black suit of some sort with a gun in one hand and a bright white knife strapped to her thigh. 

“Sorry,” She said her voice garbled and robotic sounding through whatever audio feed her helmet had “One of the guys went to call backup, I had to pick him off before we were faced with a hundred more of these awful GG soldiers. The bastard tried to gas me,” she shook her head. 

“Aren’t you glad you took my advice and brought your helmet?” The man asked her.

“Shut up Marcus,” She said not in an unfriendly way.

“Let’s go,” Keith said gruffly.

“Yes, let’s.” The woman said.

What had the Marcus guy called her earlier? Lu?

Whatever, he could worry about names later. Lance raised his gun again and they set off quickly exiting the building, the desert air was hot and the sun was blinding.

They encountered more soldiers as they made their escape but they took them down easily. 

“Hurry,” Lu said as the approached a large beaten up spaceship “We need to get off Earth for now.”

The boarded keeping their weapons raised and their muscles tense while Lu sat down in the pilot seat and fiddled with the controls bringing the ship into the air.

They flew higher and higher until the blue sky turned to space and they were out of the atmosphere. No one let themselves relax until Earth was nothing but a tiny pinprick in the distance.

\--

Lu the pilot lady put the ship on autopilot and turned to her passengers.

“Well, that was quite…” She trailed off mid-sentence shaking her head “Wait a minute,” She said jumping up “Lance?”

“Uh, What?” Lance asked confused.

“You’re alive!” She said excitedly.

Before Lance could react she was throwing her arms around him. 

“Um no offense,” Lance said as she released him after a long moment “But who are you?”

She froze for a moment before letting out a peal of laughter “Oh, of course, I’m an idiot.” 

She reached up pushing a button on her helmet, there was a hiss as it came apart from her face transforming into a small black loop which collapsed on her neck like a necklace.

However, the cool helmet was the last thing Lance could focus on because standing in front of him was someone he never thought he’d see again.

Her hair was short, cut at her chin and her left eye was white and cloudy, but there was no mistaking her. 

“Allura,” Lance whispered.

He pitched himself forward into her arms hugging her tightly. When he let her go she touched his face gently “I read on the Galactic Web that you were dead,” She whispered.

“And I thought you were dead!” Lance said ignoring the tears that dripped down his face.

“Then I guess we’re even,” she said softly. 

They stepped apart and the rest of the team came forward taking their turns to hug her tightly and in Hunk’s case curse and scold her for five minutes straight before dissolving into tears and hugging her so tightly Lance though he may have broken one of Allura’s ribs. 

Coran for the second time in twenty-four hours was rendered truly speechless unable to do anything but hug his niece and pat her gently on the head. 

Everyone got a chance to hug her, even Curtis came over and shook her hand introducing himself as Shiro’s fiancé. When he did Allura shrieked excitedly at the prospect of Shiro getting married and hugged Curtis like an old friend.

Now the only person who hadn’t greeted Allura was Keith, he stayed exactly where he was gaze fixed on the floor.

“Are you mad at me Keith?” She asked quietly.

His head shot up to meet her eyes “Yes, I can’t believe all these years we’ve been mourning you and… you’re alive.”

She smiled “You’re upset I’m alive?” She asked raising an eyebrow.

“No- it’s… I’m just processing. This doesn’t feel real.”

“I get the feeling, I’ve been dreaming about seeing you all again for years. There were times when I was sure I’d die before I ever got to. Now that I’m here it feels unreal.”

“Yeah…” Keith nodded.

“Well, get over here and hug me. You can do that and continue processing.”

Keith rolled his eyes but got up anyway and let himself be pulled into a hug.

“I don’t understand,” Pidge said tearfully “your lion was empty after we crashed, we were sure you were gone, what happened?”

“The GG took me while you all were unconscious. I guess that was part of ‘eliminating Voltron’ getting rid of me. They kept me prisoner for years, I met Marcus while I was there and we decided to plan our escape. Honestly, I still can’t believe it worked, but we got away and have been on the run ever since.”

\--

“We need to figure out where we’re going,” Allura said after their tears had been dried and everyone’s wild emotion had died down a little.

“We can go to New Altea,” Coran suggested, “We’d be safe there.”

“We would,” Allura agreed “But we can’t just hide out. Marcus and I came to Earth in the first place because we were tired of running. We’re lucky we got there in time to save you guys, but I refuse to go back to hiding again.”

“We don’t have to,” Keith said, “we can fight.”

“Okay, how? Arcana may be dead but the GG is still kicking, it’ll be much easier to get rid of them, but it’ll still take a small army.”

“Then we get one,” Keith spoke seriously his brow furrowed.

“Where?” Pidge asked.

“That’s easy, the Blade of Marmora.” 

“You think they’d be willing to lend us a small army?” Shiro interjected. 

“Of course, it’s our mission as the BoM to keep the universe from unjust rule.”

“That and your mom basically runs it,” Pidge rolled her eyes.

“Well, yes…” Keith admitted, “That might also sway them a bit.” 

“Okay then,” Lance said, “you should contact your mom, have her meet us on New Altea to fill her in.” 

“Sure,” 

“Comms system is to the right,” Allura motioned.

“I know Allura, no offense but your ship is pretty basic, I can find the comms just fine.”

Allura frowned “Why is that whenever humans say ‘no offense’ it’s always followed by something offensive.” 

“Because humans fucking suck,” Keith said dryly before typing in his mother’s private communication code.

As Keith fiddled with the comms system Marcus got up “I’m gonna go clean up my armor,” he told Allura.

“Could you get my helmet too?” Allura asked slipping the necklace over her head.

He nodded taking it from her and disappearing into the back of the ship. 

A moment later there was a crackle as the comms it connected and then Krolia’s voice rang through the ship’s audio system.

_ “Keith?” _

“Hey, mom,” 

_ “Are you calling me from space? I thought you were on Earth.” _

“Um… about that,” Keith said.

_ “What have you done?” _  She asked with the practiced tone of someone who was used to her dumbass son’s antics.

“Well, it wasn’t technically my fault,”

_ “Did you ruin Shiro’s wedding? Because I was very much looking forward to that and I will be mad if it has to be postponed.” _

“Well, no. It probably does have to be postponed though.”

_ “Keith,” _  She sighed 

“Okay so long story short, I bumped into Lance at his sister’s house a little while ago, he got his memories back and it turned out that the Garrison is corrupt and trying to take over the universe. They tried to kill us but we were rescued by Allura who surprise, is not actually dead and her partner who is some guy who’s name I actually can’t remember,”

“Marcus,” Allura supplied helpfully.

“Apparently, his name is Marcus,” Keith said. 

_ “I- okay wait.” _  She said,  _ “Was that Allura?” _

“Yeah,”

_ “Okay, so the Garrison is corrupt? Of course they are. _ " she sighed _  "We can handle that. Lance is back? Good for you, I know you’re in love with him.” _

“Mom!” Keith complained.

Krolia ignored him  _ “But this Marcus guy, I don’t trust you being with someone I don’t know after everything.” _

“Mother, I’m not a child. Allura trusts him so it’s fine.”

_ “Is he a human?” _

“I don’t know he’s wearing a helmet.”

_ “Marcus is a human name,”  _ she said seriously.

“Is it? Other races could use the name too.”

_ “No, it’s definitely a human name.” _

__

“How would you know?”

_ “Your father was named Marcus. _ ”

“I- I’m aware of that mom,”

_ “Only humans use the name,” _  She said firmly.

“Okay, okay,” Keith said relenting “Then he may be human, it doesn’t matter. Allura trusts him and I trust her.”

_ “Fine,” _  Krolia sighed  _ “but we should set up somewhere to meet.” _

__

“We’re heading to New Altea,” Keith said.

_ “Okay, then we’ll meet you there.”  _

There was another crackled as she disconnected and the comms went off. 

\--

Lance sat in the front of the ship watching the stars as they sped through space.

Everyone else was in the back of the ship chatting easily, catching up after all these years, but for once Lance didn’t want to talk. God damn, he was in space and he wanted to watch the fucking stars.

“Hey,” Keith’s voice said softly from behind him.

“Hi,” Lance replied with a small smile. 

“Feels good to be in space again right?”

“It does. Honestly, I’m not sure how I ever believed that I was content to be a farmer, I’m not content. I want to see the universe, not because I’m on some back-breaking mission to save the universe, but just because I can.”

“Then we’ll do that, I have a feeling our house hunting is going to be put on hold for a while, so let’s by a fucking ship. Once we’ve gotten rid of all the Garrison idiots out there, we can go see the universe. Who says we have to settle down now?” 

A smile grew on Lance’s face. “That sounds perfect, of course, we have to deal with the Garrison first, but there’s no one else I’d rather fight evil with.”

Keith laughed loudly in a very uncharacteristic way unknowingly drawing the attention of their friends “You’re an idiot,” Keith said shaking his head.

“I’m your idiot,” Lance corrected.

“Damn straight.” 

Keith bent down into an inevitable kiss, soft, delicate and sweet as honey. 

Lance sighed into Keith’s mouth “Love you,” Lance whispered as the broke apart still so close that if they were even an inch closer they’d be kissing again.

“I love you too, more than every fucking star in the universe.”

“There’s a lot of stars out there,” Lance pointed out, nodding to the window overlooking the endless expanse of stars in front of them. 

“Exactly,” Keith breathed. 

Lance giggled “You’re making me swoon.”

“Shut up,” Keith kissed Lance again fingers cupping his face tenderly.

“I thought we were gonna die today,” Lance admitted when they broke apart again. “But we didn’t.”

“Evidently,” Keith said arching an eyebrow. 

“But as they had a gun to my head I just kept thinking that I couldn’t die because we hadn’t had forever yet. And then we didn’t, so maybe the universe is on our side.”

“You know what, I’d like to believe it is.” 

Their little bubble was broken by Pidge shouting: “Hey Keith, Lance! Stop being stupid in love and get over here!”

Keith sighed but untangled himself from Lance, he held out and hand and Lance took it letting his lover pull him up and lead him to the back of the ship where everybody was gathered. 

Allura raised an eyebrow “That’s new,” she said motioning to Keith and Lance.

Keith shrugged “Relatively. I actually need to talk to you about all it at some point, but we can save it for when we’re not on the run.”

“Sure, though I must say, healthy communicating? That’s not very in character for Keith Kogane.”

Keith shrugged “I’ve been working on it.”

“Wait a second,” Came Marcus’s rough voice from underneath his helmet which he still wore, maybe it made him more comfortable or something. “Kogane? That’s your name, Keith Kogane?”

“Uh yes,” Keith said frowning, “Why?”

“Your mother isn't by any chance… Krolia?” 

“She is,” Keith said skeptically “Why? Do you know her?”

“Holy shit,” he breathed “Um I did, a long time ago.” 

“How?”

Marcus hesitated before speaking “She crash-landed on Earth, I was a teenager, sixteen. I’d run away from home and was living in a cabin in the middle of the desert. I saw her ship crash one night, thought it was a meteor at first. I was real fucking surprised when I found a spaceship, and even more surprised to find an alien inside. She was hurt, I let her stay, nursed her back to health.” He titled his head “Might’ve fallen in love with her, I thought I had at the time, but hell, I was sixteen, never been loved in my life. I fell for the first person who treated me with love.” He shrugged “Found out she was pregnant a few months after she crashed, she stayed just long enough to have a son, I was seventeen when she left our kid with me and left me to go save the universe or whatever. I was a teenager, but I think I did a fair enough job raising that kid for as long as I could, I had my faults but I fucking loved him, I’ll tell you that. Until one day I dropped him off at the park…” 

He trailed off and Keith continued for Marcus, brow furrowed “You told him to behave and be good, said you’d see him soon. Except you didn’t. No one ever picked him up from the park that day, he had to go home with his friend’s mom when no one could get in contact with you. The next day he found out that the house had burned down and you were gone. They never found a body and your fucking kid spent the next ten years of his life jumping from place to place, thinking no one would ever love him, wondering where the hell his father had gone.” Keith said quietly.

Marcus tilted his head back before hesitantly reaching up and pressing the button on his helmet revealing his face for the first time. 

He had dark close-cut hair and a wide jaw with an old scar running from his eyebrow to his cheek. His eye were the same as Keith’s, dark, an impossible indigo color. 

“I was taken prisoner, by the GG. The bastards found out that I’d been in contact with an alien and they wanted to keep that shit real quiet. Took me, burned my house down, and put me in a cell for the next fifteen years or something, I don’t know exactly how long though, time is hard when every day is the same. But I got lucky, they never knew I had a kid. Obviously, the fact that I had a son with an alien meant that I had to do some hiding shit. Didn’t have no birth certificate or nothin’. So they never found you, when the state took you it wasn’t anything unusual for them I guess. It’s fucking Texas, people have kids and they live like a hermit in the middle of the desert and everything beyond is fucked up. They didn’t ask no questions and the GG never found out.” 

“You know,” Keith said “before going into space I had exactly zero parents. No mother, no father. Just Shiro and eventually the rest of Voltron who became my family. But I never would have fucking dreamed that I’d find both of my parents in space, that’s insane.”

“S’pose it is,” Marcus shrugged “But isn’t all of this shit insane? Is this more so than anything else?”

“Well, I spent two years in the quantum abyss living on the back of a space whale with my mom and a wolf who can teleport. Guess it’s no weirder than that.”

“Yeah, it’s not.”

Keith paused tilting his head to study his father “You’re a lot younger than my mom, you don’t seem anywhere old enough to have me a full-grown adult as a kid.”

“I told ya, I was sixteen when you were born. I ain’t that old.” 

“Then you were what, nineteen or twenty when you were taken prisoner by the Garrison?”

“Yeah, I was nineteen.”

“You never seemed that young to me.”

“You were four kid, the only people who seemed young to you were babies. I was an adult to you, even when I was still fucking seventeen.” 

“I guess…” 

“Why are you so fixated on my age? You’re taking this whole thing awful well.”

Keith shrugged “I already did this once with my mom. And then she’d purposely left me. You didn’t, you were taken, so I’m not mad. There’s nothing you could have done.” 

“I wanted to get back to you, y’know. But by the time I escaped the GG with ‘Lura I knew you’d be all grown up, I thought I’d be giving you the best life by keeping my distance until the GG wasn’t on my ass anymore. I had no idea you were the goddamn leader of Voltron.”

“I understand,” Keith said, “but now you know, so you can do better, get to know your son.”

Marcus smiled for the first time since he’d taken off his helmet “I’d like that, kid. I really would.”

Keith returned his smile faintly. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting to happen today, but he was okay with it.

 

 


	26. Good Riddance

They miraculously arrived on New Altea.  
   
Allura rushed out as soon as the ship had landed, she threw off her dark jacket and spun around in the misty Altea air with a gleeful laugh.  
   
Despite her short hair, ragged clothing, and blind left eye, she looked like her younger self again, bright and full of childish, simple glee. She was home, Lance understood, he’d felt the same way when he returned to Earth for the first time. And that wasn’t even the same, because Earth had never been destroyed and then magically returned.  
   
“I still don’t understand exactly,” Allura said flopping down into the soft light pink grass, “how this is here. Pidge explained the whole thing to me about sacrifice and balance. I’d heard that before, it was an old Altean belief, but by the time I was born, we didn’t really put much stock into it anymore. What I don’t get is if I’m alive and Lance is alive, then what was the sacrifice? Honevera?”  
   
Lance followed her lead, sitting down in the grass beside Allura “Partly,” Lance said biting his lip “But the sacrifice was supposed to be Voltron. I thought the only way to surely get rid of Voltron was for one of us to die, but it turns out we didn’t need that for Voltron to fall apart. The lions are gone, we were stretched across the galaxy. Voltron is gone.” He shrugged.  
   
“But isn’t that untrue?” Allura sat up to meet Lance’s eyes “We’re back together, isn’t that Voltron?”  
   
“No, we’re not paladins, we’re not Voltron. We’re a family. Voltron is dead, and you know what?”  
   
Keith cut in before Lance could tell them what exactly; “Good riddance,”   
   
Lance laughed smiling softly at his boyfriend “Good riddance.” He agreed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this one is super short, but there's only one chapter left after this.
> 
> Honestly, I felt like it would be cool to end it like this, but there's still some stuff I need to clear up so there's another chapter. 
> 
> I'm not currently happy with the final chapter but I was stuck on how to fix it so I put it aside for a little while. Buuut I just finished my fall semester of classes and I have a winter break until spring semester starts in January so I will have time to fix it so I'm happy with it and then post it hopefully in the next week or two. 
> 
> In the meantime I posted the first chapter of my newest project "it's a cruel summer" which is a klance celebrity AU inspired by Taylor Swift's Cruel Summer so you should go check that out because I already love it so much. 
> 
> Also a little secret just for my favorite readers on this fic: I'm working on another small klance fic which is going to be so cool and fucking angsty, so look out for that coming sometime soon.


	27. Epilogue

 

__

So, it wasn’t easy to purge the universe of the infection that was the Garrison. But with the full force of the former Voltron team and the BoM, they got the job done pretty efficiently. 

Their first day on New Altea they met up with Krolia and filled her in on everything, putting together their game plan. 

There’d been an awkward moment when Krolia had been faced with Keith’s dad for the first time, but they’d talked for a long time the next day and after that everything seemed okay. As weird as the entire situation was, they became friends. Sure they weren’t your traditional, loving, doting parents, but Keith already had Shiro and Curtis for that. 

One night they’d all met up on New Altea for dinner and Shiro, Curtis, Krolia, and Marcus had spent the entire time lecturing him about keeping in touch. 

“How the fuck did I go from zero parents to four?” Keith had groaned.

“Language Keith,” Shiro had scolded. 

Keith looked like he wanted to throw himself into the nearest star. 

Speaking of Shiro and Curtis however, they’d gotten married the next week despite everything. It wasn’t the big Earth wedding they planned, but rather a quiet ceremony on Altea. Nevertheless, it was perfect anyway. 

Now, it had been a year since they’d been let off of the fight against the Garrison. They’d done so much at that point that the Blade of Marmora simply didn’t need them anymore, there wasn’t much left to fight. Arcana had been the mastermind behind the whole plot, and since Lance had, y’know, killed her, the Garrison’s pipe-dream of an empire toppled after enough force was applied.

So Keith and Lance had bought a ship and they’d taken off to see the universe. 

And they had seen, so much. But eventually, it’s time to settle down.

They were in the Gueftsos System when Keith asked Lance to marry him.

It wasn’t a huge surprise or a dramatic moment. They’d had enough of those to last a lifetime.

They were just sitting in the front of their ship, Lance had his head on Keith’s shoulder and they sat in a comfortable sleepy silence watching the stars, because still even after all this time they never got old, when Keith turned to Lance and said:

“Hey, so about our whole forever thing,”

“Hm?” Lance asked sitting up “You’re not breaking up with me are you?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Nah, the opposite really, do you wanna marry me?”

“Yeah,” Lance nodded before laying his head back on Keith's shoulder.

“Cool.” Keith smiled, and that was that.

They got married four months later on the beach. All their family was there, Lance’s blood family, all four of Keith’s parents, the former Voltron family, along with all of the friends they’d made along their years of adventure. 

Lance would say he’d never been as happy as he was that day, that it was the happiest day of his life.

But it wasn’t, because every day with Keith was just as happy. 

They weren’t perfect, they still bickered, and they full out fought sometimes too. With screaming and tears. But they always worked things out, in fact, Lance prided himself on their communication skills, they’d really figured it out. How to work together as a team, how to live together, take on the universe together,

But most of all, how to love together. 

 --

Lance always wanted to go to space. He used to dream about it, read about it, and talk about it.

Now he was sure that he’d go anywhere Keith went.

Whether that be space or fucking Texas.

Though let it be noted, that Lance was able to find somewhere to put a pool on a farm despite Keith’s insistence that it wasn’t going to work and that it wasn’t practical.

So take that Keith, you dumbass. 

_ Fin. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't hate this chapter, but I feel like it's really mediocre and anticlimactic. I've been working on it but everything I try to do with it seems to be worse than what I originally wrote. So I'm just posting it like this and hoping you guys will understand. 
> 
> I guess I can use this as a teaching moment for any aspiring writers or even just readers. People like me who write fics on here are doing it all for you guys, and most of the time we aren't professionals. I am seventeen in my last year of high school, I just got back into writing a year ago, this is the second full-length story I've ever finished writing. So maybe I couldn't write the perfect ending I wanted to, but that's okay because with everything I write I learn and get a little better, bit by bit.  
> Be patient with yourself, whether it's with your own writing or whatever endeavors you choose to go on. 
> 
> So thank you all for reading, and thanks if you just discovered this fic, and thank you if you've stuck by me through it. I hope you'll continue to stick around to see me and my writing grow and improve. 
> 
> Thanks for all the sweet comments that have brightened my days and kept me writing this. 
> 
> I love you guys and if you're interested you can check out some of my other fics!


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